Chapter 3: Bloodshed
Location: Loud House
Time: 12:45 A.M.
The Loud House has had a reputation for being the most noisy and obnoxious house in Royal Woods. The place has had neighbors come and go due to the amount of activity that goes on in the house as well as the arguing. It's even surprising that their long time neighbor Mr. Grouse hasn't moved out yet due total the constant yelling, but he was able to deal with and even became friends with the family after they gave him some holiday cheer. Today however it was quiet with a deadly almost impossible silence that would make many of local neighbors think 'who died?' and while it wasn't that it could almost be the same thing. The silence was so thick and tense you could almost cut through it with a butter knife and the house looked so dead and lifeless without the natural loud sounds of fighting and complaining present.
Inside the house the Loud sisters were sitting in the living room and were just finished listening to Lisa explaining the situation. Their brother was gone, taken to where they had no idea. Lynn and Luna locked themselves in their own respective rooms, both feeling equal guilt of being responsible for Lincoln's disappearance. Luna felt it was her fault for egging Lynn on which prompted the fight while Lynn felt it was her fault for losing her temper when she could've easily ignored it or taken Luna into the hall to deal with her. When Lisa was finished with her explanation Lori was the first to speak "Is there any way for us to find out where he is?"
"Unfortunately, no that was very experimental prototype that was not ready for testing in any sort of environment. As far as I know our only male sibling's current whereabouts are a complete enigma, that and add in the device's reciprocation to its early activation without any coordinates or settings…" she stopped to look at her sisters which were giving her dumbfounded looks. "*Sigh* in simple terms I don't have a clue where he is." Her sisters didn't like that answer.
"Well there has to be something we can do, brother is missing and the only way of finding him went with him! You must have made some sort of backup plan in case this happened, right?" Lisa pondered for a moment before an epiphany struck her and she gained the biggest smile anyone had ever seen her give.
"I remembered I placed a homing beacon in the device, one that I could not only track the device but remotely open a portal to a designated access point!"
"Well what are you waiting for? go ahead and activate it and bring Lincoln home!" Lola yelled at her little sister.
"Well that's the problem, I haven't even started on any designs for the access point and doing that would take a long time."
"How long are we talking here?" asked Luan
"At the very least a few months."
"A few months? A FEW MONTHS!? LINCY IS GOD KNOWS WHERE SCARED, ALONE, AND PROBABLY HUNGRY WITH NO ONE THERE TO HELP HIM!" Leni yelled in an extreme fit of unfamiliar fury.
"I'm sorry but if I want to make sure Lincoln comes home in one piece and healthy then it will take a few months to not only it but make sure all the bugs are worked out and that it doesn't blow up while trying to activate it or while Lincoln is halfway through!" Lisa yelled back at her older yet ditsier sister.
"All right that is literally ENOUGH! I don't want any more fighting between us, or did you all forget how we're in this situation in the first place?" that comment made the two arguing sisters stop and look down at the floor in shame as well as some of the other sisters in the room.
"…I'll get to work on the device. It's better to get started now than later." with that said Lisa went up the stairs and to her room. Lori sighed before she looked towards Lucy and Luan.
"You two, go check Luna and Lynn" the two siblings nodded before going up the stairs and back to their rooms. "Everyone else just be calm we'll get Lincoln back" the rest of the sisters went about the day.
'I Hope.'
Location: Old hospital
Time: 8:03 A.M.
"Stay here until I come back" Lincoln watched as Liam re-equipped the stealth suit mask and grabbed the silenced rifle before heading to the door, with Dogmeat following close behind.
"What's going on?" Lincoln started to follow only to be stopped by Liam at the door.
"Okay look, you need to stay here while Dogmeat and I take care deal with these mercs. If they find you there's no telling what they'll do to you and trust me really don't want to find out." Liam pulled out the 10mm silenced pistol he took from the corpse of Mr. Burke, the insane perfectionist who was sent to blow up Megaton by his employer Mr. Tenpenny, and gave it to Lincoln.
Lincoln held the gun uncomfortably "What's this for?" he asked in a shaky manner.
"Anything that isn't me or Dogmeat" Liam's blunt answer left Lincoln in very unwanted position. Lincoln had never held a gun before let alone fire one, and the fact that he might have kill someone who might do something much worse only helped leave Lincoln as a shaking mess as Liam and Dogmeat left the room. Lincoln sat there in the room contemplating on his position, would he die here? Would his sisters ever find him? Would he ever see home again? All Lincoln really wanted was to home, to wake up from this horrible dream, but this wasn't a dream it was real and he had to get through this not just for him but his family, his sisters.
Lincoln looked towards the hallway that Liam and Dogmeat had gone through and had an internal debate whether he should follow or not. Normally he just would make up his own plan and do things his way, but he had no idea where he was and had access to no useful resources that could help him in his current position. He turned his attention back to the silent killer that was placed in his hands, could he really do it? Could he kill someone if it came to it? The thought of taking a life was one Lincoln never thought would enter his mind and from the way Liam acted and what he said when he handed Lincoln the life ending device he could only assume that this "wasteland" was a place of kill or die.
Before he could ponder any further Lincoln heard an explosion coming from what he could assume to be the front entrance of the building. He immediately ran out of the room and down the chipped and crumbling staircase before he came upon the main lobby. Lincoln looked down from the upper balcony area to see the front doors being completely off their hinges and five men dressed in black body armor were bickering back and forth to one another.
"You dumbass now he knows we're here! The whole point of traveling to this shithole early in the damn morning was to get the drop on him!" The supposed leader yelled at one of the grunts clearly furious.
"I'm sorry but the door was being blocked by something if I had to guess it was that Nuka-Cola machine that's now laying on top the front desk" the grunt looked over to see the aforementioned object now flipped over onto the desk.
"I don't give a damn, we could've used the windows or looked for a backdoor BUT NO! apparently your stupid, little dick brain thought that making the LOUDEST possible entrance to let our target know THAT WE'RE HERE TO KILL HIM!" the leader pulled out a blocky looking object before it fired a red laser at the grunt and turned him into smoldering ashes. The rest of the mercs, plus Lincoln, looked at the man scared for their lives.
"Anyone ELSE want to piss me off? No? Good, spread out and look for this bastard" the mercs proceeded to follow their orders and began to search the area. Lincoln crawled away from the scene and into one of the many restrooms that were still intact. Did that really just happen? Did he just really see someone get killed in cold blood? Lincoln's breathing started to rapidly increase and he could feel his heart almost burst from his chest while his body began to cover in freezing cold sweat.
'This isn't happening! This can't be happening! This has to be a really horrible nightmare!' Lincoln started to rock back and forth while he held his legs close to him almost as if his life depended on it. His eyes started to water with hot tears, but he knew that no matter how much he cried he wasn't going to wake up. He wouldn't wake up in his room where he would hear the daily chaos of his home, he wouldn't get to greet all of his sisters in the morning at breakfast, he wouldn't get to see Lily grow up, he wouldn't get to see Luna make her dream of a Rockstar a reality, he wouldn't get to see anymore Lola's pageants, he wouldn't be able to be there for his sisters when they needed him most, and tore him up more as he quietly sobbed just wishing for this to be over.
Lincoln stopped his silent moping when he heard gunshots coming from outside. He quietly got up and shuffled over to the door. He could hear yelling and gunfire the closer he got to the door, when he opened it he saw that one of the thugs were dead the other was wounded and Liam standing over them holding a black scoped revolver in his right hand. One of the other surviving mercs charged at Liam from behind with a crude knife, but just when Lincoln thought the thug would land the blow Liam grabbed his wrist and proceeded to twist and snap the bone making the grunt drop the knife before Liam but a bullet in his head.
Lincoln then heard a shocked gasp from his left, he looked over to see the thug who had killed the grunt earlier giving him a surprised look, but that look of surprise turned into a savage grin as he raised his weapon and began firing at Lincoln. Lincoln dropped the gun in fear and started to run but as he was halfway up the stairs one of the red projectiles hit him in his right leg. The pain was searing almost unbearable as the laser went right through his leg no problem. Lincoln continued to limp up into the higher levels despite his leg's protests, with the savage killer right behind him.
Liam turned to pursue but the other wounded merc tackled him to the ground with a new even more deadly looking knife and proceeded to stab Liam two times in the shoulder before Liam grabbed the thug's wrist with his good arm and began to wrestle for the blade.
Lincoln continued to limp as fast as he could, going down one of the many hallways of the upper floors. He looked back and saw that the crazed mercenary was no longer following him. Lincoln gave a sigh of relief as he began to slow down, however as he did he was tackled into one of the many rooms with someone on top of him. He opened his eyes to see the man who he had been running from getting up and delivering a swift kick to the poor boy's stomach making him double over in pain.
"You know it's funny, I've read all the files we had about the 'Lone Wanderer' and nothing told me he had a kid." The man pulled out his blocky weapon as he approached. Lincoln was trying to recover from the blow that was delivered to his gut when he felt a foot placed on his shoulder, he looked up to see the man pointing his laser weapon at the boy with sick, sadistic grin plastered on his face.
"Once I kill you I wonder if I'll get double pay for killing the Wanderer's kid" the thug was about to pull the trigger when he heard a deep growling. The thug turned to look only for Dogmeat to bite and latch on to his arm that was holding the gun. As the two began to struggle Lincoln was feeling around for something he could use to hit the thug in the head, as his hand blindly patted around he gripped what felt to be a thick wooden board Lincoln started to pull but it was stuck tight. As Lincoln pulled he heard a high-pitched yelp, he looked over to see the man hit Dogmeat on the head making the dog release his jaws from the thug before kicking the mutt in the under belly hard causing another yelp and sending him skidding across the room.
The mercenary turned to Lincoln and approached him, meanwhile Lincoln kept pulling at the board but somehow the thug didn't notice this. The merc raised his weapon, however before he could pull the trigger Lincoln was able to yank the board free and swung it at the merc. The results Lincoln got was not what he expected. Lincoln hadn't seen the large nails imbedded into the board which is why two of those nails were now deep in the left side of the merc's throat. The mercenary dropped his weapon and gasped hopelessly while simultaneously chocking on his blood. The mercenary stumbled back a few steps before falling onto his back, Lincoln saw the man's chest lay still as a pool of blood started to form around the body.
Lincoln looked at his hands which were stain with speckles of the thug's blood with wide eyes. He had just taken a life.