Lana's Dream.
It was the middle of the night, no moon in the sky, and she was trapped in a twisted forest stalked by some unknown creature. Lana was running at top speed, trying her hardest to get away. She felt like Snow White in the scene where she was lost in the scary woods before she got to the dwarves' house.
"Help…Lincoln Help!" cried Lana as she ran.
Lana could hear whatever was chasing her getting closer with every step she took until she ran into a rock wall, like a cliff. Her hands scrambled over it, looking for anything to grab onto, but there was nothing. It might as well have been a brick wall to her.
"Oh no, I'm trapped,"
Suddenly Lana heard laughing behind her; turning around, she realized that she was cornered by what was chasing her. It turned out it was her beloved frog Hops and the rest of her critters she takes care of. However, they all were twice her size and had glowing red eyes as they moved closer.
"No, stay back, you monsters!" Lana yelled back against the cliff.
"What's the matter, Lana? Don't you love us anymore?" Asked Hops, who sounded like an evil version of Kermit the Frog right now.
"All we did was eat your brother," said El Diablo the snake, who had a voice like Dora the Explorer's evil twin.
"We just wanted to make you happy," said Bitey the rat, who spoke like a Mickey Mouse creepypasta.
"No, this isn't real, you're not my babies, and Lincoln isn't dead. LINCOLN, help, please!"
"What makes you think he's going to come for you?" asked Hops.
"I know he will. I know he's mad at me and has every right to be, but I know he'll save me because he's my big brother, and he'll always be there for me." Insisted Lana.
"Is that why you treated him like used cat litter? Because you believed he wasn't allowed to hold a grudge against you?" Asked El Diablo.
Lana grimaced but didn't respond.
"That's it, isn't it? You think that because you're 'family,' he has no choice but to have your back when you're in trouble. But when it's him in trouble, suddenly he's not family anymore." Commented Bitey.
"You don't see him as a brother; you see him as one of us, just another pet to you. There to make you feel better when you want him, stashed away in a cage when you don't." Added Hops.
"And you still expect him to save your butt just because 'you're family'?" Taunted El Diablo.
"Might as well put a collar on him." Remarked Bitey.
"I made my mistake, and I promise I'm going to find a way to make up for it once I wake up," Lana confessed, crying a little.
"You Louds have proven to be very annoying; how are you able to resist my control? Even the Casagrandes fell into my control eventually, but you and your sisters have all managed to maintain a strong sense of self this entire time. Why is that?" Asked Hops, now speaking in the voice of the Nightmare King.
"How should I know? If I did, would you actually expect me to tell you?" Said, Lana.
"Tell me how you're able to resist me, you little brat, or I'll-!" Said Nightmare Hops, before suddenly
Shazam!
With a loud boom and a crackle of lightning hit the ground knocking the critters back. Lincoln was standing between Lana and the corrupt critters.
"Lincoln, you really came,"
Lincoln looked over his shoulder, nodding before returning to the nightmare.
"You want answers, Nightmare? Well, I do too. Tell me, why do you want to be in the waking world so much? You can literally do whatever you want in this realm, so why go to mine? Wouldn't that be a step down since there you'd have limits for once? And if you still have no limits in the waking world, then what still makes that place more special than the dream world?"
"Simple within the dream realm, I'm bound by rules, that limit my power and my control over dreams. but here, those rules no longer apply. I can control dreams from outside of dreams,"
"But then you're just trading one set of rules for another." Lincoln argued.
"Did you really think that I would go this far only for someone like you to 'convince' me to stop now?" Nightmare protested. "I'll soon rule both the waking and dream world once I wipe slumberland off the face of the universe," said nightmare as all the critters merged into a twisted amalgamation.
As the creature roared, Lincoln stuck up his left index finger, creating a ball of lightning that was growing. When the ball of lightning became as big as his fist, he threw it, sending it down nightmare Hops's throat and into the creature's stomach. At first, nothing seemed to happen until the creature started screaming in pain as its body began expanding as electricity flowed through its body. With one final screen, the creature exploded into nothing but nightmare slime before evaporating. With the nightmare gone, Lincoln turned his attention back to Lana.
"Lincoln, I'm sorry for being a bad sister and,"
"Lana, we all have a lot to talk about, not just you and me, but they don't have to wait till later. I've still got to save Lynn, Lucy, Luan, mom, and dad, and Luna,"
"I understand; good luck,"
Lincoln summoned his staff, creating a whiteout when Lana's vision came back; she was standing in the middle surrounded by all her animal friends. Lovingly they all embraced her, and she was happy to see all of them, especially hops.
Lynn's Dream
Held by the throat Lynn was thrown into a nearby wall before dropping to the ground. However, Lynn was back on her feet, ready to fight more.
"You'll have to do better than that to keep me down," said Lynn, wiping off a patch of blood from the side of her mouth.
"Don't worry, I will."
Stepping out of the shadow was a nearly exact duplicate of Lynn, the only difference was her eyes were red. In evil Lynn's hand was a baseball bat stained with blood and it wasn't hers.
"You're gonna pay for what you did!"
Despite knowing that none of what was happening was real, the sight of her evil twin hurting Lincoln sent her into a rage.
"Hey, all I did was teach Stinkin a lesson; not my fault the wussy's head cracked like an egg," Mocked Evil Lynn. "Right, boys?"
Suddenly two more figures walked out in the form of Hank and Hawk. The three surrounded Lynn while she raised her fists.
"You think dressing up as me with these idiots is supposed to intimidate me? I'll take you on no matter what you look like,"
"Again with resisting my power, tell me from one bully to another how are you able to do this?" Said nightmare Hawk and Hank.
"I'm not a bully,"
"I think Lincoln and this bat say otherwise," mocked Evil Lynn. "Remember it's the same one you threatened him with when he didn't want to go to your stupid game, then you got him kicked out of the house because he was bad luck,"
Lynn felt sick to her stomach, remembering that particular series of events, one that the Loud family as a whole declared 'Let us never speak of this again'. Even though Lincoln did his part in making the situation worse, it never would have started in the first place if she hadn't blamed him for her loss,
"Fine, I admit it. I was a bully to my brother even if I didn't mean to be, I'm overly competitive, and I turn everything into a contest when it doesn't have to be. But just because I was one doesn't mean I'm still going to be one," said Lynn.
"Oh Please, once a bully, always a bully," Laughed Evil Lynn.
All three began growing in size and bulking until they towered over Lynn.
"How does it feel to be the weakling, bully?"
Despite the fear Lynn felt, she still stood her ground as they threatened her.
Shazam!
"Not again!" Said Evil Lynn.
Suddenly two lightning bolts came crashing down striking Hank and Hawk dissolving them into nightmare slime before they evaporated. Panicking, Evil Lynn grabbed Lynn and rushed off, manifesting a wall to block Lincoln as he fully manifested in Lynn's Dream. Not wasting any time, Lincoln smashed through the wall seeing two exact Lynns.
"Really? Are we really doing this bit?"
"I'm the real Lynn, she's fake, cut that out,"
"Guess we're doing this," said Lincoln as he raised his fists, charging them with electricity and making both Lynns freeze up. "Okay here's how it's going to go; one of you is going to tell me something personal that only my sister and I would know. The one who tells the truth is the real Lynn,"
The two Lynns looked nervous while Lincoln intensified his electricity, signaling to hurry up.
"Okay, fine; I secretly like to wear dresses when no one is looking. I have a secret wardrobe that Leni made me that I hide behind my regular clothes," said the first Lynn.
"What!? He doesn't know about that!' said an embarrassed Lynn.
"Actually, I do, which is why you're the real Lynn,"
Lincoln fired a blast hitting the first Lynn, making her scream in pain as she spoke with Nightmare's voice.
"How? I told you something that you both know!"
"Yeah, you did; the only problem was the real Lynn didn't know I knew that detail,"
With one final scream Nightmare was banished, and the surrounding turned into a void. Lynn couldn't look her brother in the eye, too ashamed to.
"Listen, stink…I mean, Lincoln, I just wanna say I'm sorry,"
"Lynn, I know we have a lot to talk about, but it will have to wait; I still need to save the rest of our family,"
"I see, good luck!"
"Till then, I'm sending you somewhere safe,"
In a flash Lynn found herself standing on a stage, in front of her was a man dressed in a tuxedo holding a gold medal that he was presenting to her. It was then she realized where she was, at the Olympics and she won the gold. Instead of her usual bragging Lynn humbly bowed her head allowing the medal to be draped over her head before bowing to the crowd.
"Thank you Lincoln,"
Lucy's Dream
Lucy found herself in a misty cemetery, not an uncommon aspect in her dreams at all. Though this wasn't a normal cemetery if anything, it looked more like it would belong in Nightmare Before Christmas. She wasn't scared, or at least she wasn't supposed to be, but she was before an open grave with a casket readied to be lowered, and she was wrapped up in a straight jacket on a gurney like Hannibal Lecter being pushed towards it. So in an unusual move, Lucy was for once quite scared and trying to get free.
"Let me go! I'm just a kid!" Lucy shouted, struggling to break free.
"Kids die and get buried all the time; you're just doing it in reverse." The voice of the person pushing the gurney stated.
Lucy gasped; she knew that voice. "Aunt Harriet?"
"You love ghosts so much, you might as well become one."
Once closer to the open grave Lucy could see several other ghosts, including the ones she encountered at Loud Castle, and among them were her family dressed in black. Her parents and sisters looked sad and at the coffin but the ghosts looked directly at her, smiling in a sinister welcoming way. Lincoln was nowhere to be seen.
"Get me out of here! I'm not dead!" Lucy called out, but none of her family heard her.
"Oh sweetie, they've always ignored you when you wanted attention. That's pretty much your entire gimmick isn't it? Being the real victim of your family?" Aunt Harriet taunted, putting her to a stop by the coffin.
"It's not a gimmick! Its'-" Protested Lucy, only to have Aunt Harriet cut her off.
"Oh that's exactly what it is. You're just another middle child that wants to believe she's being neglected because she's not the center of attention. In your eyes, if you're not getting all the love then you're getting none of it. But that's only a problem when it happens to you, not when it happens to one of your sisters, or your brother."
This made Lucy stop fighting to get free.
"Truth hurts, doesn't it?" Aunt Harriet asked.
"No, it's just clear that whoever you are, if you're willing to hurt me like that then nothing I say will make you stop what you're doing, so what's the point of fighting back?"
Aunt Harriet looked annoyed and then spoke in Nightmare's voice. "Sheesh, you Louds really take the fun out of this, you know that?"
Shazam!
"My point exactly." Nightmare Harriet groaned before shoving Lucy into the casket.
The casket closed as it began descending into the ground into a pool of nightmare slime, however a lightning bolt shot into the hole causing an explosion, with Lincoln rising up holding Lucy.
"I'm losing my patience boy!"
"You're gonna lose a lot more than that,"
Summoning a lightning storm Lincoln blasted Nightmare Harriet, erasing her, while Lincoln realized how easy that was.
"Something is wrong here, he's not even putting in any effort now,"
"Is something wrong?" Lucy asked.
"Nothing I can't handle, but the guy behind this all doesn't seem as focused as he used to be." Lincoln answered, setting her down.
"Maybe he's changing tactics? Or planning on something bigger?" Lucy suggested.
"I can see that. I just need to rescue Luan and Luna; then I can focus on ending this all."
"I have faith that you can do it, Lincoln," Lucy said with a smile.
Lincoln smiled back and then whited out the scenery before he disappeared. When Lucy could see again
Lucy saw herself dressed in black, looking like a vampire, and she was inside a gothic castle lobby. Other folklore creatures were gathered there just socializing, and she saw monster versions of her siblings being themselves. She felt like she was living in a scene from the movie Hotel Transylvania. A werewolf that looked like Lana gestured for her to join in, so Lucy smiled and decided to do so. There were much worse dreams to have.
Luan's Dream
And now ladies and gentlemen put your hands together for the comedy stylings of
Mr. Coconuts and Luan Loud.
Upon hearing those names, the crowd flew into a frenzy of joy that grew louder as Luan and Mr. Coconuts took the stage. Things were off from the look of the silhouette until the spotlight shined down on them. Revealing Mr. Coconuts as a full-sized human with a sinister grin on his face, and on his lap was a dummy version of Luan, but it wasn't just a dummy it was the real Luan; the roles had been reversed. Despite being a dummy, Luan could still move her eyes, and while she couldn't speak, she was screaming inside her head.
"Someone help me please!"
"Relax, doll; we're gonna knock'em dead tonight and look our main squeezes are here to cheer us on,"
Luan looked out the crowd that all looked like nightmare versions of the muppets. To her shock, she also saw a human version of Mrs. Appleblossom sitting in the front row, and to her horror, a puppet version of her boyfriend Benny Stein was sitting in her lap; Luan could only watch as the Benny puppet shed a single tear while his wooden face was frozen in a silly grin.
"No, this isn't real, and that's not my Benny!"
"Don't be so sure, doll; now let's give these jokers a show," said Mr. Coconuts, speaking with two voices simultaneously his, and Nightmare's.
"Hello everybody and thank you for coming to our show. We're so glad to have you here, aren't we Luan?" Coconuts began his routine to the audience.
"Not me, you're the one getting paid for this." Luan was forced to say in a joking manner. She had tried to scream, but her mouth and voice did not obey her.
"So Luan, I heard that you and your sisters recently made complete asses of yourselves recently. How did that happen?" Coconuts asked as if leading into a joke routine.
"Oh we tried to turn his girlfriend against him. Turns out he and her were both superheroes and our evidence was fake the entire time." Luan said involuntarily again.
The audience burst into roars of laughter while Luan just wanted to fall in a hole and disappear.
"The evidence was fake? So all this time you hurt your brother for no reason?" Coconuts asked in mock surprise.
"Not for no reason. He was born after all. We'll just find another opportunity to hurt him tomorrow and get back to it." Luan joked, making the audience laugh more. Inside though she felt a part of her die.
"The audience seems to be on your side. Share with us some of your ideas on how to hurt him." Coconuts prompted.
"Oh there were so many I came up with, I am after all an expert on hurting people after all." Luan proudly boasted, still unable to stop herself. "Let's see… there was destroying his clothes, putting maggots in his bed, and sneaking one of our used tampons into his food if we could."
The laughter from that made Luan feel so ashamed. The worst part was none of that was fake, those were all just some of the ideas she and her sisters had suggested during their campaign to make Lincoln feel even more unwelcome than he already did.
"That's a lot of hate towards your brother you know." Coconuts pointed out. "You must absolutely loathe him now that the evidence is fake and you can't keep hurting him anymore."
"Damn right! How dare he be innocent! Now everyone thinks we're the bad guys instead of him! You ever have week old garbage shoved into your locker? It was funny when it was him, but it's just plain rude when it happens to me!"
The crowd kept laughing, while Luan wished some termites would come and put her out of her misery.
Shazam!
The crowd went silent and was thrown around the place like a bomb just went off in the center area. Mr. Coconuts was thrown off his stool, dropping Luan who flew a few feet and landed in a limp pile. Standing on stage was an annoyed Lincoln.
"You know Nightmare if you were so funny you wouldn't have to laugh at your own jokes,"
"Hey, you're ruining my act buddy," growled Mr. Coconuts.
"You call that an act? You need to do better,"
"Like you can do better?"
"Actually I can, here, let me En-Lightning you!" Said Lincoln as he blasted Mr. Coconuts and the audience. In a matter of seconds the nightmare was erased and Luan was human again. As she got to her feet she saw Lincoln waiting for her. Reluctantly Luan approached her brother, ashamed of the things she's done to him and the things she thought of doing.
"Lincoln I'm so sorry for how I've acted. None of that was funny and I'm ashamed to call myself a comedian. You're right, I really am nothing more than a bully."
"Luan, I know we have a lot to talk about, but I still have work to do. I have to find Mom and Dad, and Luna,"
"Okay I understand,"
With a flash of light, like her sisters Luan was blinded, when her vision came back she was standing on the stage of the Royal Woods theater, to a cheering crowd and a puppet Mr. Coconuts in her hands.
And now ladies and gentlemen put your hands together for the comedy stylings of
Luan Loud and Mr. Coconuts
"Ready to knock'em dead doll?" Said Mr. Coconuts
After that nightmare, Luan had to admit she was less than ready to be in another show, but this time she knew this was not meant to be a way to just pick on her, but a real show. So she took a deep breath and put on a smile, knowing a good star at least approached a show with her all.
"Yeah let's." Luan said before going up to the microphone and clearing her throat. "Good evening, folks, and welcome to the show!"
Rita and Lynn Sr.'s Dream
The town of Royal Woods was in a state of flames and panicked as home after home and building after building were being destroyed one by one. Fires erupted everywhere, sewers burst like filthy geysers, and streets split like eggshells. The people were running for their lives, trying to escape the chaos that was terrorizing their town. Lynn Sr. and Rita were part of chaos as they ran with the rest. When the Louds were taken, the parents held onto each other, causing them to be trapped in a pod together and share their nightmare. Unfortunately, unlike their daughters who managed to retain a sense of self, Lynn Sr. and Rita were consumed by the nightmare king's spell and believe their nightmare is a horrifying reality.
"Rita, hurry, we have to find the girls,"
"Lynn, no, I know we can still reach him,"
"Sweet mercy, he's coming!" Yelled Flip.
"oh no!" Both Loud parents asked.
Lightning hit the road in front of them, forcing them to stop. They looked up and at first felt relief, it was Lincoln in his Shazam form, but then they noticed this was different. His outfit wasn't red anymore, it was black, and his white hair was shaved so short that if it wasn't so bright white you'd swear he had gone bald.
"Found you." Lincoln said while he hovered before them.
"Lincoln?" Rita asked, questioning whether this man was her son. Something about him really did not feel right, she did not have that instinctively awareness of her own child right now.
"Lincoln" only surged with black lightning as storm clouds gathered in the sky.
SHAZAM!
Black lightning began raining down from the sky, destroying everything. The people panicked and ran, trying to avoid being struck. Unfortunately, those like Mr. Grouse, the Mcbrides, and Flip were less than lucky and turned to ash.
"Lincoln, please stop; this isn't you," cried Rita.
"Don't do this, son. We're your family; we love you," begged Lynn Sr.
"Lincoln" looked in disbelief as if he had heard the most insulting thing ever.
"You love me? After how you've treated me, you have the nerve to say that!" He yelled in a booming voice that sounded like thunder which silenced everyone.
"Lincoln, please, we do love you; we're your family," said Rita
"The same family who made me sleep in the yard for 2 days because I was bad luck?" Replied "Lincoln".
"They did what? " Said the crowd.
"Why aren't they in jail?" said someone.
"The same family who lets their daughters walk all over me anytime they feel like it?!"
"Lincoln" used his powers to reveal his 10 sisters floating in the air; they all looked battered and bruised, as their faces looked swollen from a recent beating.
"Oh God," was all Lynn Sr. could say.
"The same family who punished me for getting us kicked out of the supermarket when it was their fault? The same family who constantly takes their side over me? The same family who blames me for everything even when it's not my fault? Who runs and hides from them like cowards whenever they have one of those stupid sister fight protocols,"
"I'm so sorry…"
"Sorry doesn't take away all the pain you've caused me, mother and father; time for you to feel what I felt for a long time,"
SHAZAM!
In a flash 10 lightning bolts came crashing down, striking all over the loud sisters at once; the parents could only look on in horror as their daughters screamed in agony before turning to ash.
"No!" Lynn Sr. and Rita cried.
"You…you brought this on yourselves. If you were better parents, none of this would have happened,"
The crowd began yelling at the Louds, blaming them for what happened
"It's your fault our hero became a menace!" Someone shouted, followed by a rock being thrown at them and hitting Lynn Sr in the shoulder.
"He's not the real monster here! You two are!" yelled another person, throwing a rock that hit Rita in the head.
"Please, we didn't mean to make so many mistakes," cried Rita.
"Yeah right! You can't keep making mistakes over and over again and claim it means nothing!" shouted someone in the crowd.
"If you couldn't handle raising so many kids, then you shouldn't have had them!" Yelled another person.
"Hey, maybe if we stone them to death, he'll let us live," said another person.
They saw no objection from "Lincoln"; if anything, he looked like the idea might actually work. With that, everyone in the crowd began grabbing rocks, torches, pitchforks, and even an ax. Where they got it from, they didn't know, but Rita and Lynn Sr ran like hell itself was on their heels. Rita and Lynn Sr. tried their best to avoid the angry mob chasing them, dodging the numerous things thrown at them along the way. Numerous taunts and insults were shouted as well, blending together to where Rita and Lynn Sr could barely make out more than one word at a time. All the while "Lincoln" was flying above, watching with a sinister smile. Eventually, the Loud parents could no longer run after running into a dead-end. As the mob advanced on them, their eyes glowing red, Rita and Lynn Sr. held each other ready to face the end.
SHAZAM!
Suddenly a lightning bolt crashed, blasting the mob back; when the flash cleared, the real Lincoln was standing between the crowd and his parents.
"Lincoln?" asked Rita, confused.
"Mom, Dad, I know all of this seems real, but this is all a bad dream, and I promise you, I will never become that monster up there."
Lincoln's presence affected his parents as they began to regain their sense of self, remembering what happened before they woke up here and that monster in the sky could never be their son.
"Son, we're sorry we ever thought you would become that," said Lynn Sr. pointing to the "Lincoln" in the air.
"Especially after we told the Santiagos you wouldn't." Rita added, choking up a little.
Lincoln nodded before focusing on the crowd now throwing things at him, with one mighty blast he reduced them all to ash. Turning his attention to his imposter, Lincoln flew up to confront his doppelganger.
"You reached a new low Nightmare!"
"I don't see a problem, you know better than anyone here if they had done a better job raising your sisters you wouldn't have gone through all this drama, I was doing what you always wanted to do,"
"Then you don't know me at all. I would never want this no matter how angry I get,"
"Which is why a weakling like you doesn't deserve to be champion,"
SHAZAM!
Nightmare Lincoln then fired a blast at Lincoln, seemingly damaging him. However Lincoln quickly brushed it off.
"Is that all you got? Let me show you how it's done!"
SHAZAM!
Lincoln unleashed a powerful blast, annihilating his evil twin and the whole nightmare in fell swoop. As Lincoln returned to his parents, they were still recovering from being freed from the Nightmare King's control.
"I'm so sorry, son," said Lynn Sr.
"It's not your fault, dad he took what you fear the most and used it against you,"
"Still, he is right about the fact that it is our fault if we had done a better job as parents and…wait, the girls, are they okay?"
"I just have Luna left to save, and Lily was never captured; she's in slumberland safe,"
"What the ding-dang heck is slumberland?"
"It's the kingdom of good dreams; I'll explain everything later as soon as I'm done taking this guy down,"
"Show no mercy, son," Rita said proudly and firmly. "If he wants to see you mad, then show him that anger instead of everyone else."
Lincoln grinned and gave a thumbs up before disappearing; after he left, the dream went white before Lynn Sr, and Rita found themselves on a Hawaiian beach with their children enjoying themselves in various non-threatening ways while the two adults sat on beach chairs under umbrellas. Best of all, no one was making Lincoln do work for them. He looked like he was actually a part of the family, not merely an employee of them.
"Let's enjoy this while it lasts." Lynn Sr said to his wife.
"Yeah, though when we wake up, we need to make it clear to the girls that Lincoln is family, not just someone they have to share a house with," Rita stated.
Lynn Sr nodded, then found a cooler conveniently next to him. "Want something to drink?"
His wife got a playful look in her eyes he was very familiar with. "Well, we are on the beach and apparently in swimsuits. How about you put lotion on my back?"
Rita then rolled onto her stomach and untied the bra of her bikini. Lynn Sr grinned and put away the cooler.
"Best dream ever,"
Returning, Lincoln searched for more pods, but there were no more. All the pods had been transformed; this should have eased Lincoln's nerves. Instead, it alarmed him.
"Oh no!"
Ronnie Anne soon appeared feeling triumphant, but it soon disappeared seeing the horrified look on Lincoln's face.
"Lincoln, what's wrong? Asked Ronnie Anne. "we saved everyone,"
"No we didn't"
"Lincoln!?"
"Ronnie Anne…I CAN'T FIND LUNA!
To Be Concluded
End Of Ch. 23