Slice of Life Stuff.
"Card Shark! I knew it was you all along!" Ace declared with his usual pizzazz. "Only you-"
"'Have the audacity to blah blah blah." Card Shark boredly droned. "Look Ace, we've been doing this for decades; my kid has a dental appointment at 2:30 so can we just skip the usual dust up? We both know you'll win, I'll get loose five minutes after the police take me into custody and vow vengeance and so forth, but that'll take fifteen minutes and I'm not sure if traffic's going to be co-operative-"
"Hah! Nice try you fishy fiend!" Ace grinned. "But everyone knows Dentist appointments never run on time, by losing those fifteen minutes you will only be spared a quarter-hour of waiting for the last guy to get out!"
"I don't know Ace," One-Eyed Jack mused. "I think I know the place he's talking about and they're usually pretty good about timing, the secretary gets snippy if you come in late too."
"Yeah, come on man!" Card Shark bargained, dropping his stolen loot. "Look; I know you've got kids of your own, a friggin' army of them! Have a bit of empathy for a Dad drowning in responsibility; I'll even tell you where I stashed the rest I stole!"
Ace wavered, images of his many (probably literally hundreds at this point if Card Counter's 'efforts' weren't being reigned in properly) costume-clad progeny filled his mind- along with every dental appointment they'd nearly missed for some reason or another. "… You'll really just give it up that easily?"
"I swear on my deep sea soul!" The villain solemnly declared.
"Then I can't counter your claims," Ace sighed. "Show us your secret stash's location and we will allow you to escape this once!"
"Sure thing, it's in this location!" The villain pulled a cheap cell phone out from somewhere and showed the heroes the location via online map.
"… You used a gym locker?" Ace raised an eyebrow.
"Well not everyone gets super-insurance for their kid's hospital cover Ace!" Card Shark folded his arms and glared. "Some of us have to make cuts where they can."
"Yeah, have some sympathy for a working father Ace!"
"You too Jack?"
"It's part of getting older Lincoln." Jack nodded.
Ace sighed. "What is the world coming to- wait. What did you just say?"
"You need to wake up Lincoln, Lupa's found the lighter again." Jack replied in an older man's voice.
"BRUIUH!" Lincoln's eyes snapped open and he threw himself upwards in his bed, narrowly missing his own father's head. "What is- who? Dad?"
"Well that's me alright." Lynn Sr chuckled as he recovered from stumbling back. There was a squirming movement from Lincoln's chest, and he looked down to see Lulu loosely held in his arms.
Normally his bedroom was a hallowed sanctuary away from the Loud Spawn and he wouldn't dare take any single one into here regardless since the rest would become jealous and demand the same. Last night however there had been some kind of ruckus and between Luna's twins becoming a ball of brown and slightly more greyish-brown haired destruction, Lacy gleefully speeding away to 'play' hide and run from the adults (he was so proud when she'd started walking too…) and Lily's trio of terrors ominously overseeing the mess it was judged by unanimous vote to remove the most dangerous piece from the board before whatever was going to happen next.
Now Lulu was awakening from the jostling, she opened one eye and it was a near solid yellow with a cat like slit running from top to bottom. She blinked and opened both and they were now both human. But as she opened her mouth to yawn her jaw split into five and from her throat came out two feeler like fleshy threads that flopped upwards, their tips landed on Lincoln's check with a wet splat.
"I think she's hungry." Lynn Sr remarked with good humour. "You know Mrs Levantine probably wouldn't miss a cat or two."
"Yeah but I don't want to change a bone and hair filled diaper again," Lincoln grumbled and futilely tried to pull the now adhered feelers from his face before giving up. He instead rose in his rumpled clothes from last night, infant abomination in tow. "What was that about Lupa finding the lighter again?"
"Oh nothing, it's just breakfast time and you weren't waking up." His father shook his head. "Come on, Rita's already downstairs with the rest of the tykes."
"… I'm happier not knowing?" Lincoln asked upon seeing the kitchen, surpisingly clean but with a suspiciously new coat of quick dry paint over every wooden surface.
"Very much." His mother nodded. "I think there's still some Apple Puree in the pan if you feel like freeing yourself."
The main nodded, and quickly marched over to the pan, checked the temperature and drew a spoonful out to hold next to Lulu's face. Lulu's nostrils widened as the scent reached her, she turned her eyes to the glistening ambrosia.
SHLUPP! One tendril popped off. Lincoln drew the spoon just out of her reach as she went for it.
SHLOORP! The other disconnected with less finesse, leaving a light welt behind and Lincoln let the infant grab the spoon with both hands. Alas his fingers weren't fast enough to stop Lulu from not only stuffing the spoon into her 'mouth' but swallowing it entirely.
"Dang it. Looks like we're going to looking for metal in her diaper again."
"I think Lisa's working on another pacifier," Rita recalled. "Something a bit hardier this time."
"I sure hope so," Lynn Sr leaned down to his 'chewing' grandchild and gave a gentle pinch to her cheek. "You're a cute little thing, when you're not a nightmare from the darkest depths of hell anyway, but gosh darn it I liked those golf clubs!"
Lulu made a vaguely happy-laughing gurgle.
"Where are the rest of them?" Lincoln looked around, surprised to see no infants, and more so not to hear any in the background. "Did.. did the girls come and pick them up? Is Lisa's the only one here today?
Is… is this what a holiday feels lik-"
"Apologies elder sibling," Lisa's dry tone cut his ramble short as she came into the kitchen. "The others are currently in their assigned sleep pods after the last night's 'activities'. However they are set to finish their cycles in-" she checked the clock, "staggered intervals at five minutes apart, starting in ten minutes with subject sixteen."
"Oh that's.." Lincoln raced his mind to try and remember the name of the numbered child. "… Liby, I think?"
"Liby Loud is subject fourteen," Lisa corrected. "But I digress; this is the new pacifier." She presented the green, seemingly ordinary pacifier from her pocket. "This will help avoid another 'incident' so long as it is used properly; observe."
Lisa engaged her Offspring Oral Opening Technique (OOOT), a highly technical set of movements suspiciously similar to the 'here comes the airplane' procedure employed by more banal parental units around the world. However as this was designed and improved upon by one Lisa Loud it worked far more effectively, and as Lulu opened her mouth in stupefied shock from the otherworldly movements the pacifier popped in without a problem.
Instantly her still slightly segmented face started folding into her more human visage and one feeler that had remained dangling as she'd chewed suddenly sucked back in like a piece of spaghetti. Lulu looked around with a little surprise, then raised one hand up and pulled out of the pacifier. The hand holding the pacifier remained human, but her other one started unravelling into multiple plant vine-esque tentacles. Then; as she pushed the pacifier back in the tentacles curled back together into a more normal appendage.
The infant giggled and starting 'playing' with other parts of her body in the same way.
"Yes S-12, I'm glad that you find this amusing." Lisa let a little smile surface, before returning her attention to the other adults. "Now I believe that this should suffice as a countermeasure to any further 'incidents', now unless my services are needed for-"
"Come and have breakfast with us dear," Rita calmly grabbed the retreating scientist and sat her down at the kitchen table. "You've been cooping yourself up again and we've barely seen you."
"I assure you parental un- ooohf!"
Her lap was suddenly filled with experimental offspring who grabbed onto her mother's labcoat and stared upwards with pacifier in mouth.
"Lulu wants her mother as well, and I want to eat with both hands for once." Lincoln bluntly told her, before slipping into his own seat and relaxing for the first time in weeks. Lisa rolled her eyes and performed the OOOT once more, this time inadvertently allowing her mother to see the exact angles her arm took in the more intricate parts of the technique.
"Lisa Marie Loud! Why can your hand do that!?" Rita gasped upon seeing her daughter's arm twisting in decidedly inhuman ways to distract her own daughter to feed her without the usual contest.
"Do not distress maternal unit; I have merely temporarily replaced several of my standard issue limbs and organs with superior lab made models. They are far more effective for both laboratory work and child rearing- as you have observed."
"Can you put them back in later?"
"Affirmative paternal unit, it will be part of an experiment to observe how the body reacts to-"
"I'll just take the yes without the stress thanks."
"Yery well- Subject Twelve please give me back my prosthetic."
"Sorry Leese, I told you she likes metal!"
"... It is a minor concern, I suppose this indicates a flaw in her programming. I'll update her human-recognition subroutine to include artificial-"
"You programmed her!?"
"Why did you think she wasn't eating the rest of your progeny for additional nutrients and individual care?"