Okay, last chapter was focused on Lola's caste, so it's only fair to tackle Lana's caste for this chapter! And if you thought Lisa and Penelope didn't get along, just wait until you see how Lisa interacts with this particular subject! Or should I say, subjects?
Also, no, sadly, I'm not yet back to a stable writing schedule by the time I post this. I just chose to post this now because, well, I've put this story on hold for long enough.
Anyway, let's move on!
Lisa sat on her desk, looking at a picture of Penelope and Clyde together, with a massive cluster of lines spread across it leading to pictures of cloning, alternate dimensions, adoption, and so on. Each and every single one of the option pictures, however, were marked out.
"It's hopeless! No matter the hypothesis, I can't find a logical explanation for Penelope having offspring!" Lisa snapped, throwing her papers up in the air. "I mean, it is possible with cloning or adoption, but the former's too complex for Clyde and Penelope, and the latter wouldn't be possible since they are both adolescents!"
And then she realized what she did. "My research notes!"
The prodigious toddler got off her chair and ran around the laboratory, hoping she could catch as many papers as she could before they were blown away elsewhere. And then she tripped on something, and as soon as she hit the ground, Lisa turned to see what she tripped with, and saw it was Lily, who was crawling around the metallic floor with a look of sadness.
"Lily, how did you get out of your crib?!" Lisa got up, lifted the baby and walked her back to her crib. "Listen, I know I promised to take you to the outdoor, recreational play area street name park, but I desperately need to solve to solve troubling conundrum that lies before me!"
The baby, of course, didn't understand a word of what her sister said. "Okay listen: Apparently, one of Lincoln's classmates, who's only around 11 like him, has-or at least had-a daughter!"
Lily opened her mouth, as if to say "No way!" in disbelief.
"I know, right?! It's just such a baffling concept!" Lisa sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I never even thought such a think could be possible, but-"
Suddenly, the duo heard the elevator open.
"The next subjects have arrived!" Lisa rubbed Lily's head. "I'm sorry, Lily, but I have to go take care of this."
Lisa pushed the teddy bear closer to Lily before going back to see the subject. Lily, however, looked at the bear with confusion, and even slight boredom, before she took out and put a fox mask over it. She shouted "Fafa!" and hugged the masked toy with delight.
"Greetings, and welcome to my laboratory," Lisa tiredly remarked, taking out her pen and clipboard combo as she added, "Sit down and-"
However, the prodigy got a surprise when she saw not one, but two people come out of the elevator: Liam, one of Lincoln's classmates, and Hattie, his cousin, and one of the girls Lincoln dated to try get over his funk with Ronnie Anne's moving.
"Two subjects?! I have two subjects today?!" Lisa exclaimed, almost throwing her pen and clipboard in the air before she stopped herself. "My mind was already blown by the last three individuals! But most importantly, why are there two of you?"
"Well, I was originally going to come here and do this examination thing alone," Liam explained, scratching the back of his head nervously. "But Hattie over here heard me talk to my Grandma about it, and she stubbornly decided to come with me-"
"I may like Sci-Fi, but that doesn't mean I have to trust scientific stuff or scientists like you!" Hattie snapped, clinging to Liam's arm before adding, "I've watched enough movies to know what people like you could do to my cousin, and I'm not going to give you the chance to do it!"
"Great, another subject that thinks I'm a proverbial mad scientist, just what I needed," Lisa muttered. "Listen, I'm just a simple toddler prodigy who's helping her brother figure out what each caste can do. I don't have any desire to hurt you. Anyway, if you're doing being a paranoid weirdo, I'd like you to tell me what powers your caste possesses, Liam."
"Wait, you want me to show my powers right away?" Liam asked, tilting his head in confusion. "Aren't you going to ask us where our birthmarks are located?"
Lisa stopped on her tracks and turned around. "Is that supposed to hold some sort of significance?"
"Our Grandmother always told us that the birthmarks everybody has have some sort of meaning depending on where they're located," Hattie explained, before Liam showed his right arm, which is where his birthmark was located. "For example, Liam's birthmark is on her arm, and as a guy, that means he's a family man and prefers to stay at home."
Hattie then lifted her face a bit, revealing her birthmark was on her chin. "As for Hattie, her birthmark's on her chin, which means she primarily supports and provides for the family."
"I guess I'm supposed to take that her being this clingy is her way of being true to her birthmark's significance?" Lisa deadpanly inquired, raising an eyebrow as Hattie clung to Liam's arm once more. "I'll take that as a yes. Anyway, can I see her birthmark again?"
Hattie rolled her eyes and looked up, revealing her chin birthmark. Lisa promptly revealed her forehead, which showed her birthmark on her forehead... slightly to the right.
"Okay, I have the same birthmark, so I'll assume you're part of my caste," Lisa wrote that fact on her clipboard as Hattie looked down and crossed her arms. "So, what can you tell me about our caste's powers?"
The girl remained silent, with a stern look across her face.
"You know, super powers? Odd ability you and people in the same caste can do? Like controlling machinery, and so on?"
Same response. Or lack of response, for that matter.
"Okay, clearly, either I'm not being understood, or you're being passive-aggressive for whatever reason," Lisa remarked, adding as the subject took a deep breath. "Listen, I'm kind of on a schedule, and I don't want this to take so long the next subject arrives and-"
And then the girl growled, "Where are the animals you're keeping as test subjects, you sick psycho?"
Lisa flinched, and blinked twice, feeling stupified at what was just said. "W-What did you say?"
"You heard me, you little mad scientist in the making!" Hattie stomped forward to Lisa, grabbed her by the neck of her sweater and pulled her up. "Where are the animals you're keeping imprisoned to use for your sadistic experiments!? You're a scientist, so there should be some innocent creatures you're keeping trapped for your experiments!"
"I-I-I have no idea what you're talking about!"
"Hattie, stop it!" Liam barked. "If there's somebody here that should be worried about the animals, that would be me! And I can't sense any animals nearby, so please, put her down!"
Hattie growled at the scientist, then dropped her on the floor, allowing Lisa to crawl back to her chair and catch her breath before snapping, "What the heck is wrong with your cousin!?"
"Trust me, everybody who's ever met her has had the exact same question," Liam shook his head. "And oddly enough, they've said it in the exact same furious tone as well."
"Okay, so, your cousin won't tell me anything about her powers," Lisa narrowed her eyes. "And in fact, I'd appreciate it if she left us alone so we can do this examination without any potential harm coming to either of us."
Hattie gritted her teeth, but Liam quickly interjected, "Hattie, please let me handle it. I'll be fine, don't worry."
The girl turned back to Lisa, and walked deeper into the lab, pushing Lisa to the side before she left. Liam immediately walked to Lisa and helped her get up, with the prodigy giving Hattie an angry look, before turning back to Liam as he said, "I'm so sorry-"
"What the ever loving heck is up with your cousin?!" Lisa snapped, startling the boy. "I mean, seriously, I'm here, just trying to get all this business done with, and then she comes here and threatens me like that!"
"Yeah, she hasn't been the same ever since she joined that Lincolnism movement," Liam casually said, earning a confused look from Lisa that prompted him to explain further. "We were hanging out at the school, when one of the girls asked her if she had met Lincoln before. She said they went on a date sometime ago, and she went with them once they said they had cookies."
"Ah yes, cookies, the hardest sweet to reject," Lisa shook her head and chuckled in amusement.
"Yeah, she left for a really long time, so I just went on with my day as usual," Liam scratched the back of his head and looked elsewhere. "When I found her back home, though, she had those purple eyes and her attitude had changed to more along the lines of what you just saw-"
"I'll stop you right there," Lisa interrupted. "While I do find your explanation fascinating, I'm afraid we don't exactly have the spare time to hear more about it, but I will look into it at a later date."
Lisa sat back on her chair. "For now, show me what powers you have."
As that happened, Hattie started looking around deeper into the lab, trying to find the imprisoned animals she thought Lisa was keeping around. Unfortunately, though, the only things she managed to see were robotic models, the covered Royal Woodroid 5000, and pretty much a bunch of mechanic and metallic stuff that were interesting, but not what she was looking for.
Eventually, she crashed close to a door labelled "emergency exit." She promptly opened it to see it lead to an elevator similar to the one she and Liam took to enter, only it seemed to lead somewhere else in the Loud house entirely. However, Hattie simply closed the door and continued to look around...
And then she heard a baby laugh.
Recognizing the laughter, Hattie went to the source of the laughter, this being Lily, and approached her as she said, "Well hello there... Sandalphon..."
Back with Lisa and Liam, the scientist wrote down some notes as Liam spoke with a frog he held in his hands. "Okay then, so you can talk with animals. Is this an ability shared by other members of your caste?"
"I'm not familiar with many other members of your sister's caste, but I have seen some of them, and all of them were able to talk with animals," Liam let the frog go, watching it hop away as he added, "So, yeah, you could say the caste as a whole can talk to animals."
"Excellent, we're making some decent progress," Lisa hummed to herself. "How about turning into an animal? Can you do that?"
Liam took a deep breath, then closed his eyes before his physical form morphed into that of a bull, with his clothes accomodating to the size right away. Needless to say, Lisa was impressed.
"Impressive! Even your clothes transformed with you!" Lisa wrote that down on her clipboard. "Speaking of which, why didn't your clothes stretch and rip apart when you transformed?"
"Oh, these clothes were gifted to me by Hattie," Liam answered as he turned back to normal. "Supposedly, she got a tailor to make the clothes magical, so that they don't rip when I transform, but instead morph with me."
"Very interesting," Lisa scratched her chin. "Has your cousin, by the way, shown any peculiar powers that you don't think you have?"
"Well-"
Suddenly, Lily's cries were heard from all the way deep inside the laboratory, making Lisa and Liam immediately go towards the spot Lily was last seen at. And once they arrived, they saw Lily crying as she tried to fight back Hattie, who was grabbing her and trying to head for the emergency exit.
Once he saw this, Liam narrowed his eyes, transformed into a bull and rushed straight for Hattie, trapping her between his horns and allowing Lily to bite her, making her flinch and release her in pain. And the baby fell right on Lisa's arms, who was less than happy about the implication of the situation.
"What. Were you..." Lisa narrowed her eyes, which glew green as she was surrounded by a green aura. "Doing with my baby sister?"
The nearby electronic devices started to glitch and the lights started to flicker as Liam turned back to normal, while making sure to keep a hold on Hattie in place. Lily also noticed the glitches, and started to cry, causing Lisa's aura to dissipate and her eyes to turn back to normal as she turned her attention to her baby sister.
"C-C-Calm down, Lily, please calm down!" Lisa exclaimed as she tried to comfort the baby. "Your older sister is here now. And she'll make sure you don't get hurt anymore."
Lily's crying stopped for a moment and she gave Lisa a worried look, with a little tear running down her cheek before Lisa wiped it off and stated, "I promise."
Just then, however, an explosion happened right on Hattie and Liam's spot, with the resulting smoke cloud covering the pair long enough to nearly stun Lisa, but not without letting her smack away the dust cloud to reveal... the duo were no longer there.
"There's something up with those two, specially that Hattie girl," Lisa thought, narrowing her eyes as she placed Lily back on her spot. "I should be wary of her, just in case she appears again."
Meanwhile, with Hattie and Liam...
The cousins stood in front of Mabel at a desolate alley, with the illusionist girl looking rather displeased. However, the way she strictly glared at Hattie made it clear her anger was mostly towards the girl.
"What were you thinking, Hattie?!" Mabel snapped, fury evident in her tone. "You can't just up and try to kidnap Sandalphon!"
"It's for the sake of the world, Mabel! She's the only one who can convince the unborn progenitor to join our side!" Hattie turned to her cousin and snapped, "Liam, help me out here!"
"H-Hattie, you know that I'm not interested in the "Lincolnism" business, and besides, I don't even know why you need to steal a baby, that sounds cruel to me," Liam walked to Mabel's side. "If anything, I'd have to agree with the watermelon-headed girl here."
Mabel promptly slapped Liam in the cheek. "Watermelon Girl" has a name, you know? It's Mabel."
"Sorry," Liam twiddled his fingers. "Is Hattie going to get in trouble for this? 'Cause she needs to be home before night, or-"
"That'll be for Progenitor Luna to decide," Mabel folded her arms. "For now, go back home and rest, I'll tell what happened to the other lincolnists."
"But the church is miles away from here!" Hattie pointed out.
"And that would be an issue," Mabel smirked. "If I was actually here right now."
Mabel burst into a stream of confetti, revealing herself to be nothing more than another one of her illusions. Baffled, but not having time to waste, Liam and Hattie shrugged it off and walked back home, with Hattie turning back to the spot the illusion used to be with a distrustful look before following her cousin.