~ 7 Weeks Ago ~
Lincoln went to use the bathroom, but Lola slammed the door ahead of him.
"What gives, Lola?!" said Lincoln. "I gotta go!"
"You always clog the toilet!" snarled Lola, peeking out and pointing a finger at her older brother. "Go somewhere else! You need to practice your pooper scooper role anyway!" She ended her sentence with a sinister laugh, slamming the bathroom door in his face, and the other Loud sisters stuck their heads out of their rooms and also laughed briefly, with Lucy's sounding more melancholic due to her goth personality. Lincoln was furious, watching Lola go in first. He then turned to the viewers and sighed.
"I'm never gonna live this one down, guys," he said. "Clyde and I were shooting to be Kings of the Con that one time, but I made a terrible mistake by inviting my sisters dressed as those Ace Savvy characters I came up with. Heck, Bill Buck agreed to add them to his Ace Savvy universe! It was one of the highest honors I could have received in my life."
"And you just flushed it down the toilet!" said Luan, peeking out of her room again. "Hahaha! Get it?"
"It's not funny, Luan!" Lincoln shouted. "I have to go and Lola's hogging the bathroom on purpose!"
"Suck it up, twerp," sneered Lori. "You deserve to explode anyway after what you pulled. As if you ever thought you could literally best your own sisters at anything! Besides, that Ave Savvy stuff is lame. You'll outgrow it in a few years, I'm sure."
"Then why did you agree to those stupid movie roles, then?!" roared Lincoln. "You can't just exploit my characters-!"
"Oh, we can," said Lola, stepping out of the bathroom. "And we will! For fame... for money... and to cement our glory as superstars!" Lincoln grimaced in anger as his sisters laughed mean-spiritedly at him again.
"You're literally never as good as you think you are," said Lori with pride. "As if you can get anywhere in life after what you pulled."
"Hmph," he muttered. "Well... they don't know anything. They're still my characters and I have the right to be recognized for my hard work instead of some snooty sisters just showing up and leaving me with nothing!"
At school, things were ten times worse. Lincoln and Clyde were horribly bullied, as somehow, word of their misdeed at the Comic-Con spread to Royal Woods Elementary School. Despite that they admitted their mistake, it seemed other people did not favor moral virtues, especially the contest judges, so the boys were given the most degrading roles in the movie, or so the judges hoped it would cement them as the 'criminals' they deserved to be known as. The bullying and pranks ranged from name calling to stuffing their lockers with cat litter and cat poop. A few other students even threatened to call the cops on them because they were labeled as criminals over the incident. And during lunch, they had food thrown at them. Of course, Lincoln and Clyde's friends were not part of any bullying and tried to defend them, obviously each attempt ending in vain. But as a small glimmer of hope, the pranks that went up to eleven did not go unnoticed by teachers and staff, in all likelihood because Lincoln and Clyde's friends had done the sensible thing and reported them, but what helped was that the cat litter and cat poop didn't just make Lincoln and Clyde reek. The smell started to spread throughout the school and it became an unintentional inconvenience for the school janitors trying to keep the school hallways, classrooms, offices, and cafeteria clean. Finally, after three days, Principal Wilbur Huggins issued a warning to the student body that if the pranks didn't stop, the staff would be capable of tracing the pranks back to whichever student or students did them and either suspend or expel them depending on the severity, or if they didn't come clean, or even if the pranks kept on going and cause the whole school to be consumed by a rather foul stench. Both Lincoln and Clyde suffered from a terrible week at school and poor Lincoln had it worse because of his sisters, but what he didn't know was that one of them, Lucy, was heartbroken seeing her big brother pay the price for coming clean. Although, it was fair to say that Lincoln wouldn't be going around clean for a while.
"You can't keep coming home smelling like this!" said Rita to Lincoln after his week at school concluded.
"Like that's MY fault!" argued Lincoln. "I've been trying to tell you for days-!"
"Well, son," said Lynn Sr. "I think the con made a point that stealing is wrong and that you can't always get what you want."
"So I deserve this?!" bellowed Lincoln. "Thanks a lot!"
"Honey..." Rita started to say, but Lincoln cut her off.
"Just leave me alone!" he said, a slight crack in his voice. "I don't wanna talk to anyone for the rest of the day!" He stormed up the stairs, entered his room and slammed the door shut.
"Do you think we're being a little hard on him?" Rita asked her husband.
"Well, now that you mention it," Lynn Sr. pondered. "What Lincoln and Clyde did doesn't come across as anything they would normally do. Maybe... maybe there's a lot more to this incident." He sighed. "Unfortunately, we can only get the full scoop from Lincoln and he's not in the mood." Luan suddenly laughed from upstairs.
"Hahaha! 'Scoop'!" she repeated. "Get it? 'Cuz Lincoln is gonna be a pooper scooper! You're secretly funny, Dad!"
"I'm not trying to be," said Lynn Sr. with a surprisingly serious tone.
"Mom? Dad?" Lucy suddenly appeared next to her parents, startling them both.
"Goodness, Lucy!" said Rita. "I thought you only startle your brother like that."
"I'm making an exception this time," said Lucy. "I know you found out about Lincoln being the victim of those pranks at school. So I want you to know something. I do not believe I am at a dark line of thought to suggest that Lincoln does not deserved to be... swallowed by darkness. And if you are our parents, I hope you believe that too."