(Author's Note: Hello there everyone. TogerVolcano5000 here and welcome to another chapter of "Lena Loud"!
Chapter Two: The Bully
"I FOUND IT FIRST! NOW LET GO!"
"NO, I DID! AND YOU LET GO!" I rolled my eyes at my two squabbling roommates. Lana and Lola were fighting…again. Surprise of the century right there? Huh, I've noticed that I'm always sarcastic in my thoughts but not when actually talking. Interesting. I was walking out of school with them. The three of us go to the same school along with Lincoln and Lucy. We were now walking from our classroom to go meet up with them now.
"Guys? Guys?" They kept on fighting, oddly enough they were accurately making their way through the emptying school. Instead of following them and going straight, I took a left as I just couldn't walk the rest of the way with having to listen to them screaming at each other. I really wish that my siblings didn't fight all of the time, I really don't like it. Mom and Dad told me that it's normal for siblings to fight, but mine take it to the next level. I mean, I know that we all love each other but they can make it really difficult to see sometimes. I was so preoccupied in my own thoughts that I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and ended up walking right into someone. I let out a small "eep" as I fell to the ground.
"Huh? Who's the wise guy?!" I picked my head up to get a good look at the person I'd just walked into. He looked to be about the same age as Lincoln. He had dark green hair (that did not seem natural) that was spiked up and a scowl etched on his face. He had fair skin and looked pretty muscular. The red jersey he wore told me that he was a sports fan like Lynn (scratch that, no one's a sports fan like Lynn) only it was a little more obvious because he was bulkier.
"Oh um, I'm really sorry. My name is Lena Loud and I was just going out a different way than usual." Looking at the floor, I began to walk past him only for the boy to put his arm up in front of me.
"Sorry, but it ain't gonna be that simple."
"Huh?" Before I could ask what he meant, I found myself hitting the floor again only this time even harder. He…he pushed me! Despite my attempt to fight them, I could feel a few tears began to leak down my face.
"Aw, is the little baby gonna cry? Let that me a lesson to you about messing with Ryan Martin, you little brat!" With that, he sneered at me before walking away. Sniffling, I picked myself up and began walking outside. I hastily wiped any traces of tears form my face, not wanting any of my siblings to see. They can be a tad…overprotective and that's putting it mildly. But given my…rather "quiet" personality, they all can be extra protective of me and just really didn't want to cause any trouble. Walking quickly, I soon found myself at one of the school's exits. Once I was certain that I had wiped all traces of tears from my face, I walked out and quickly spotted Vanzilla. All of my other siblings who went to the school were climbing in, with Lori in the driver's seat.
Picking up the pace, I made my way over to the van and climbed in with everybody else.
"Hey Lena, are you okay?" I didn't look in the direction of my brother. Out of my siblings, Lincoln was probably the best at determining when something was wrong with me. Although Luna is a close second, but that's not the point. I didn't want to look at him because I knew that he would know something is wrong as soon as he saw my face. Whenever something was bothering me, Lincoln was the one person who I could never keep it from. Even though Lincoln knew better than anyone how overprotective they can be, I knew that he would tell our sisters if something was wrong. He may not like their overprotectiveness but, it's as I said, they're all overprotective of me.
"Nothing Lincoln. I'm fine."
"Are you sure?" While I hated to lie to my family, I didn't want them to blow this out of proportion.
I put on a fake smile, "Definitely."
'Well, alright," Lincoln smiled and ruffled my hair. Although his smile wasn't fake like mine, I could see a hint of doubt and worry in his eyes.
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The next day, things seemed to be back on a regular schedule school wise. Unfortunately, I had to sit by myself at lunch today. This was because I had different lunch schedules then my siblings. I did have a friend I usually sat with though. That's actually an understatement, Laura Ferrara was my best friend. We met each other in preschool and I was extremely glad that we convinced our parents to send us to the same elementary school. Sadly, she called and said that she was sick today so it looked like I'm on my own.
"Well, well, well, look who it is." I froze at the sound of that voice and slowly turned to see Ryan walking to me with an arrogant smirk plastered on his face. I immediately looked down and began hastily eating the sandwich I had brought. "Hey, come on now Lena. Is that anyway to treat a friend?" He roughly ruffled my hair before smacking the sandwich from my hands and laughing.
"Ryan, I'm sorry for yesterday. It was an accident, and I don't want any trouble," I spoke quietly, unsure of how to react since I've never been in this situation before.
"Trouble? Who ever said that I was here to cause trouble? I'm just hanging out with my favorite little dweeb," he laughed again before taking the apple from my bag and biting into it. Wanting nothing more than to leave, I quickly gathered up my stuff and hastily walked out before he could do anything. And, that's pretty how the rest of my week went. Every chance he got, Ryan would be there to bug me. It was really annoying. I probably should tell someone, but I just don't want to. If I tell anyone, that news will get back to my siblings and…trust me, this is the best choice. Right?
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(3rd person P.O.V)
Something was up with Lena, Lincoln just couldn't put his finger on it. She'd be acting really weird all week and he wanted to know what the problem was. However, not surprisingly, Lena wasn't very enthusiastic about sharing her thoughts. She'd always tell him that she was fine but the more she did, the more trouble he had believing it. It's not that he didn't believe her, it's just that she has a history of keeping her feelings bottled up. Lincoln was currently standing outside, waiting for his younger siblings and for Lori to pick them up. While he was thinking he spotted someone walking out of the school who he recognized immediately. Laura Ferrara. She had tan skin and black hair that reached the bottom of her neck. She wore a green shirt, shorts, and even shoes. Like Lena with fuchsia, Laura really liked the color green. Everyone in the Loud family knew of Laura, as everyone (and by everyone, he mostly means his other sisters) had made such a huge deal about Lena making her first friend. "Hey, Laura!"
The girl is question turned around to see her best friend's older brother waving at her, "Hey Lincoln!"
"Hey, can I ask you're a question?"
"Sure. What's up?" Laura took notice of the serious look on Lincoln's face.
"Since you're Lena's best friend, I was wondering if you knew anything about what's been going on with her this last week." Lincoln quickly took notice of the angry look on the girl's face and became a little worried.
"I can't just tell you, I can show you. Follow me." Feeling a mixture of confusion and curiosity, Lincoln followed the young girl back through the school.
Before he could ask her what was going on, he heard a voice, "Come on dweeb, aren't you gonna push back? You really just gonna stand there and take this?" As the two turned their heads over the corner, Lincoln was shocked to see his little sister on the ground and crying with a kid around his age standing above her and laughing.
"S-S-Shut up, Ryan," Lena said as she stood up, with a few tears on her cheeks.
"S-S-Shut up Ryan," said boy mocked, "Listen to yourself. Nothing but a little crybaby." The boy then shoved Lena to the floor and anger surged through Lincoln's entire being. He was about to go over there and give that "Ryan" guy a piece of his mind…but stopped.
"What are you doing?" Laura whispered to the white-haired boy. Given the fact that she was half Ryan's size and couldn't do anything to help her friend, Laura was really looking forward to seeing Lincoln kick Ryan's butt.
"Don't worry about it. I have a very, let's say "good" idea," he said to the girl, glaring at Ryan as the boy walked away laughing.
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(Later that night)
"WHAT?!" Lincoln's sisters reacted exactly as he thought they would. Before dinner, he told all of them that he had something very important to discuss with them and that it involved Lena. They were all immediately willingly to hear him out once they noticed the extremely serious look on his face. He told them that they all needed to get in Lisa's sound proof bubble before he told them, otherwise they would wake the entire neighborhood when he dropped the bomb and they all complied…after they explained to Leni that he wasn't going to drop an actual bomb.
"Bro, are you sure about this?"
Lincoln looked toward his sister, "Luna, I wouldn't say anything unless I was a hundred percent certain."
Lynn cracked her knuckles, "When I get my hands of that little twerp, I'm gonna break his legs and rearrange his face."
"I'll be more than happy to help with that," Lana said as she pulled a wrench from...nowhere?
"Alright, let's all calm down before we do something that we regret," Lincoln said as he took the wrench from Lana's hands. "But, I definitely think that we all need to have a little "chat" with this Ryan guy." Needless to say, it didn't take much for everyone to agree. What none of them knew, however, was that Lena was standing outside of Lisa and Lily's room. And she heard every word that they said.
"No. While I'm glad that they care, I can't really on my siblings to always fight my battles for me. I-I have to deal with Ryan on my own! I...need to prove to them and myself that I don't need to be babied by my family. Everyone older than Lincoln gets out of school more than an hour earlier than us. I'll have to be quick about finding Ryan and dealing with this problem myself.
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(Lena's P.O.V)
I was sitting in my class, not really doing anything. These were the last few minutes of the day where our teacher allowed us to talk amongst ourselves until the bell rang as long as we were quiet. I was just sitting at my desk, looking down in silence. I had told Laura of my plan during homeroom so she had no problem giving me this time to think as she knew that what I was about to do was very big for someone like me.
The moment that the bell rang, I raced out of the room. I knew that I had a limited time frame to confront Ryan and deal with this problem on my own before my siblings came barging into the school like an invading army. With my eyes darting around frantically, I continued my trek until my eye zeroed in on spiky green hair.
I closed my eyes and breathed in a long breath before letting it out, "This is it," I whispered to myself before opened my eyes and marching to the boy on the other side of the hallway.
"R-Ryan!" I mentally chastised myself for how squeaky my voice came out. The boy in question turned to see who had called him before putting on that arrogant smirk that really annoyed her.
"Well, hi there little dweeb. To what do I owe the "oh so great" pleasure? Come here to hang out with your best buddy?" My fists tightened and I glared at him. That condescending (yes, I know big words too) tone of his was really getting on my last nerve.
"Stop it Ryan."
He put on a fake innocent expression, "Stop what, little dweeb? I'm not bothering you, am I? Because I would never want to do that."
"Stop it Ryan."
"I mean, I would never want to do anything to upset my favorite little dweeb. That would be awful."
"Stop it Ryan!" The angry look on his face told me that I had definitely gotten his attention.
"Now look," he pointed a finger in my face, "You had better watch yourself, because I can go from nice to awful like that," he snapped his fingers for emphasis.
"Really? I wouldn't even know the difference," I blinked as the words like my mouth. Sarcastic remarks were now my thing at all. So where did that come from?
"Oh, so we got ourselves a comedian here now do we? Well let me tell you something," he took a step closer to me, "I don't find your jokes very funny."
My normal instincts would have told me to keep quiet and stay away, but I forced them down as I felt some anger beginning to surge in me. I looked him directly in his eye and took a step forward as well, "Well maybe I don't care what you think."
"You better watch your mouth, you little brat," he all but snarled at me.
"No! I'm tired of you pushing me around and I'm not gonna deal with it anymore! You're going to stop and you're going to stop now!" I saw him actually take a step back in shock, and I couldn't blame him. Seeing a normally shy and quiet kid half your age suddenly yelling at you and making demands could be quite surprising.
"Who do you think you are?!"
"The person who's telling you to stop! And if you don't I'll make you stop."
"HAAA! And just how are you going to do that?"
"I have eleven siblings. Years of observing them has taught me how to get even with people. The reason I haven't done anything is because I'm so nice. None of the others would be like this. Not Lincoln, Lucy, Lana, and especially not Lola!"
"Wait, you're related to them? And, did you say eleven siblings?" When I nodded, I actually saw him gulp and began to sweat a little as he took a small step back. Again, not surprising. The Loud family had quite the reputation not just in our neighborhood, but across nearly all of Royal Woods. He probably thought that I was from another Loud family.
"And since you know of my family's reputation," I closed the distance between us, "You know what a Loud sibling is capable of." I saw him pale at my statement.
"Well, I, u-um-."
"I'm going to make you a deal, Ryan. We both walk away and you stop picking on me. That way, I won't have to use "other" means to fix the problem," while it's true that you and I knew that I probably wasn't going to do anything, he didn't.
Looking pretty freaked out by my threat, he could only nod in response.
The glare on my face was immediately replaced by a bright smile, "Great! Glad to know that we sorted this out. Who knows? In the future, we might be able to get along with each other. See ya later!" With that, I walked away leaving Ryan to let out a breath in relief.
I felt so alive! That was great! It felt amazing to prove that I wasn't some baby who always needed someone to look after her. Wait, is that offensive to Lily? I don't know. While she does technically need to be watched over, she is pretty smart for her age.
My thoughts were interrupted when I turned corner and saw all eleven of my siblings looking at me in shock. "Oh, hey guys." My tone was more casual because their faces told me that they had seen my..."conversation" with Ryan. Though, after a few seconds had passed, I was beginning to get unnerved by their stares. "Guys?"
Lana was the first to recover, "That. Was. AWESOME! You totally told that guy off!"
I felt myself blushing a little bit, "T-Thanks?"
"Dude! That was totally rockin'."
"I'll say! I'm not really a big fan of "words", but that was totally cool."
"Sure was! For a second there, I thought that she was going to send that guy off "Ryan". Hahahahahaha! Get it?" To which all of us groaned. Not so much me though.
Lori walked over, knelt down to my level, and ruffled my hair, she and Lincoln were the ones that did this, "That was pretty impressive work there, Lena. Guess we all didn't need to get involved after all."
"Thankfully," I muttered and they all laughed.
"Come on you guys," Lori called to all of us, "Let's head home." For me, today was a pretty productive day. I fixed my bully problem all on my own! You guys didn't know how glad it was for an introvert like me to know that they can solve problems on their own. Still though, I'll say that it's good to know that my siblings will have my back if I need them to.
(Author's Note: And there ends chapter number two! Like the last chapter, it did a job of showing how much the siblings care for Lena. My original idea was for Lena's siblings to come to the school and give Ryan a piece of their minds. Last chapter they solved a problem that they caused, and this chapter they would have solved one that they didn't cause. But, in the end, I felt that it would be good for Lena to solve this issue on her own. One personality trait I should have stated about Lena is that, despite her introverted personality, she isn't afraid to stand up for herself and/or her siblings. Review, favorite, follow, and I'll see you guys next time:)
