A flurry of students begrudgingly arrived at school to begin another treacherous day in their lives. For most, it was essentially identical to the previous day, and the day before, and every other school day that could be recalled in their short lives. But for a few, today was an unusual day. Unusually filled with disturbed thoughts of a certain someone.

One of those such people was a young Latina.

Ronnie Anne Santiago was a lot of things, but one thing she had never pinned herself as was a crier. A sappy wimp who lets their emotions and feelings cloud better judgment and rational thinking. She would rather take the bull by the horns than spend time sitting and thinking about shit that didn't matter.

The previous day though, she had completely thrown that rule out the window.

Lincoln God damned Loud. That white-haired idiot always had a way of eliciting some kind of response in her, without even trying. Whether it was that stupid smile of his that she would catch a glimpse of whenever he hung out with friends, or that completely pointless look he would have whenever he glanced at a girl he liked. Or just his very existence as a stupid dorky little… dork. She of course always gave him his just desserts, successfully wiping that smug smile off his face with a well-timed prank or two. Finally directing his attention on her and her only. Not that that was the intentional plan of course. It was just nice to see his gaze on her alone for once, whether it was a smile or an annoyed glare, she'd take it.

Even after they set aside their differences and became friends, she never let up.

Even when she finally stopped being a turd and confessed her long-repressed feelings, she still couldn't stop. It had become their little thing, an inside joke between them. No matter how stupid she acted toward him, he never complained, just sent her a playful glare, and made up some crazy, elaborate plan for payback that almost always backfired. It was… cute.

And then it stopped.

Her parents informed her of her planned move to live with her cousins in an entirely different state. It was an amazing opportunity to see more of the world… albeit not that far away, and to bond with her relatives. But it meant that she couldn't be with Lincoln anymore.

They both decided the long distance wasn't the greatest for a relationship that barely lasted over three months and decided to remain friends. It was a mutual agreement and honestly for the best. And it's not like it was the end right? Maybe in a few years, Ronnie Anne would return and… they'd pick up where they left off.

She was understandably curious when, not even a week after their breakup, Lincoln disappeared from school to take care of a girl who according to him was his "aged up sister" who fell prey to one of his brainy sister's little experiments.

Bullshit.

It was a wonder why she believed that crap. His baby sister was tampering with laws of nature that scientists around the world have been trying to access for centuries.

Bullshit, bullshit, BULLSHIT!

She was such a fool for believing that for even a second. Such a worthless idiot.

She sniffed a little, using her shirt sleeve to dry the tears she felt lightly pricking her eyes. It took clear evidence that his so-called sister was not a sister to snap her back to reality. It was sad really, that she wasted hours of her life lamenting the betrayal of a bastard who surely didn't deserve her.

Gosh, if only it ended there. But no, some desperate part of her still tried to claw at threads of hope. For an actual second, she began to ponder. Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Maybe the photos had been doctored. Maybe, just maybe there was a better explanation for the obvious truth.

Thank God someone was there to slap sense into her. She would probably have gone back to being a delirious idiot.

Speaking of which.

The young girl stopped right in front of the school doors, tugging her phone out of her pocket and checking again for what had to be the tenth time that morning alone.

Yep, still there.

The night prior, a mysterious number had sent her a text. The same number that sent her, and their whole school those cursed pictures. She texted back almost immediately, barraging them with questions about the pictures. Their origin, the date they was taken, the context of the scene, anything.

The replies and following conversation after that were… cryptic and straight to the point. The mystery person comforted her on her "loss" theorizing that they must have been hit the most by this revelation. Saving face, she immediately denied, wiping her tears, and straightening her posture as if she were being watched. Looking back, maybe she was.

They seemed unconvinced though but didn't press, just offering short condolences. It was surreal being consoled by a stranger, but she took it, at least until her brother came home.

Later on, she repeatedly called the number. No reply. Multiple texts were ignored and she was always led back to an empty voicemail. It was… weird really. The person right in the middle of this whole thing was essentially a ghost with no way to be reached.

So you can imagine Ronnie's absolute shock and nervousness when her phone started vibrating in her palm right as she pulled it out of her jean pocket, the mysterious number plastered brightly right on the screen.

She took a nervous glance around, trying to spot anyone unusual, but came up with nothing. Swallowing her irrationality, she slid up the accept icon and the call connected.

"Hello?"

"How are you feeling?"

The voice was light, female, but had a hardened and business-like tone to it. She almost found herself straightening up in response.

"F-fine?" Almost a question than a statement.

"I believe you wanted information about the pictures I sent to you yesterday?" Ronnie's ears perked at that.

"Y-yes, I do, how did you-"

"All will be revealed eventually, I assure you." The same curt finality. This was the person she spoke to the previous day. "Just note that I am on your side."

My side? She had no idea there were sides. "Who… are you?"

She could almost hear the smug smirk in her voice. "That's unimportant right now. What is important is the fact that we can be mutually beneficial to each other."

"… I'm listening."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Not too far away, a thoughtful Luan Loud sagged against her seat as her classmates filed into class around her. Her mind had been full recently, of uncommon thoughts and baseless worries. Well, maybe not baseless.

The Loud House had become a bit of a strange mess recently. Everything and everyone seemed to be all over the place since the Lily incident, and she couldn't understand why. Weirder things had happened to their family and with much higher consequences attached. A situation like this was trivial when compared to all the other challenges she and her siblings had faced.

Yet…

Yet for some reason, this felt different. Like they were racing against some clock, slowly ticking toward some doom that was unforeseeable and inevitable. She had no idea why though.

And that bugged her most of all. As far as she knew, Lisa messed up big time and Lily suffered the consequences, so while Lisa tries to science-y up a cure, Lincoln takes care of Lily. Pretty straight forward right? Except… it wasn't. It felt like that was just part of the entire whole. Like she had only just put together the edges and corners of the puzzle but there was a huge gaping hole in the middle and the pieces to complete it were scattered around the room.

It's not like these worries materialized out of nowhere. There were clues of course. Like this morning for example. She had woken up to find her sister hunched over her desktop, completely naked, and palms still hovering over her privates. It was the obvious signs of a late-night horny party.

That alone wasn't cause for worry of course. She had beat the meat quite a few times in a late-night spur of weakness.

No, what made this particular event worrisome was the content of her monitor. It was the display static of one of Luan's many prank monitoring cameras. 'LNC_ROOM' to be precise. Now the question would be why Luan was brushing her bush and at some point deemed it appropriate to look over the cameras all over the house.

That wasn't the only thing. Later the same morning, she somehow managed to scare Lynn out of the house. At first, Luna didn't think much of it either. Until she realized a startling connection.

Lynn had slept in Lincoln's room the previous night. 'LNC_ROOM'. She wasn't super smart like Lincoln or Lisa but that was most likely shorthand for 'Lincoln's Room'. Something must have been going on in Lincoln's room between him and Lynn, which Luan caught on camera and brought up to Lynn the following morning, causing her to flee in fear of being blackmailed or something. It didn't take a master of psychology to piece that much together.

But what was so embarrassing to cause Lynn to hightail it for the hills the moment she realized the secret was out. It wasn't that far fetched to add Lily to the equation. After all, she herself had just been kicked out from sleeping in that same room just the night before. What was going on?

Not to mention Luan's weird behavior in their last group meeting. It was obvious she wanted to be the one to get picked into Lincoln's room, that much she could tell. What she couldn't tell was why? What the fuck was going on in the house that she had no idea of, and why did she have a bad feeling that the answer would be something she would never want to know.

"-na… LUNA!" The cry of her name was enough to yank her out of her thoughts.

Sam stood over her, a hand on her cocked hip and a worried but accusatory glare on her face. "What's got your panties in a twist dude? I've been yelling your name out forever!"

Luna ran a hand through her brunette locks, a light sigh escaping her lips. "I'm as confused as you are mate."

That wiped the accusation from Sam's face instead, she just sent her a worried glance. Something that, at any other time would have sent Luna's legs wobbly, but right now, her thoughts were too preoccupied to notice. "Are you ok Luna? You know you can tell me anything right?"

She wasn't quite sure about that. "I'm aiit Luv. Just an off day, nothing more. Though the math quiz later might have something to do with it."

Sam gave a precious little giggle and sat in the desk beside hers. "I know what you mean, yesterday I couldn't sleep right thinking about that thing."

Luna smiled, happy to have a diversion from somewhere at least to keep her mind away from unwelcome thoughts. This couldn't be the end though. She had to figure out what the hell was going on in that house of hers.

"LUNA!"

"Sorry… What were you saying again?"

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"Progress report, Lisa Loud no 16. Testing is going better than originally expected. Subject seems… Docile. Approximated wait time till the final stage; 31 hours."

The child genius shut off her recorder and reclined into her seat. The past few days she had been a wreck. Physically and emotionally. She betrayed rational thinking and tested some base samples of her original project on herself. The results were… unsavory. She would not for the life of her understand how Lori and Leni handled the weight of their mammaries. Perhaps a girl of her age simply wasn't built to handle such.

None the less, she could not dwindle. She had two missions to accomplish, both of equal and astonishing importance. One was for the sake of her baby sister's future and the other was for… them.

She chanced a glance across the cafeteria, and their eyes met. A timid brown caught a bold baby blue.

She cursed muscle memory as her body immediately tensed up. Maybe he hadn't noticed her. Just go back to her normal business and he'll leave her alone. She picked up her sandwich, bringing it to her lips.

It was immediately slapped away. "Hey, there pipsqueak."

Her features immediately became meek and submissive, eyes widening as her throat clenched in fear. "I-I'm not in the mo-mood for your g-games."

He laughed, his friends following suit. Her shaky words left no impact. She might have just worsened the situation for herself. "Looks like the little brat's still got some spunk left in her." The boy turned to his friends, a smug smile on his face. "Why don't we fix that."

She still had not looked up to his face, her eyes seemingly glued on her ruined sandwich scattered across the table. Even as he picked her up and tucked her underneath his arm like an old book, she did not acknowledge him. Because if she did, he would see the fear written across her features. She couldn't have that, even when his palm roughly rested on her rear end as he carried her toward the school exit, she did not make a sound beyond a whimper. Even as his friends followed, laughing and pointing, she stuck with her pride and paid them no mind.

She was above them, in a few years she would be receiving Nobel Prizes while they scavenged through dumpsters. That's what she kept telling herself. That's what gave her hope.

Even as the tears started to fall.

Author's Note: So.. I'm alive.

I've been dealing with some IRL stuff that have severely cut into my writing time. So to prevent another several month long haitus, I set out three hours infront of my computer to just write something... anything. This was the product of that. That is why it's a bit on the shorter side compared to the rest of the chapters. Unfortunately this might be the case for the near future if I hope to keep churning out any sort of content, and drawing it out to make it longer would just burn out the point of the plot and make it fall flat. Hopefully this isn't a permanent thing, and my productivity will increase in the future.

P.S.: To the guest reviewer who remembered the anniversary of this story even when I didn't. Thank you, That made my day.

Stay Safe, Peace.