The night had gone by pretty peacefully in the Loud house, Luna had tried to convince Sam to spend the night, though Sam felt like she would be imposing on the Loud family too much if she did that, plus she had to return the van she borrowed to Sully, it may just be used for transporting the band and their gear, but she still felt obligated to return it sooner rather than later in case he needed it.
The morning had gone pretty smoothly, Lynn was able to go an hour after awakening before any voice chimed up, she wondered if it took them time to wake up too? Lynn's left hand had healed for the most part, or at least to the point where a lot of the bruising was no longer prominent, it still stung pretty badly if she touched it, she no longer needed to 'borrow' makeup to hide the damage at least. She got through her routine like normal, currently the brunette was sat at breakfast, their father had decided to surprise the family with pancakes this morning, it was a welcome surprise for the many Loud siblings.
"Do any of you know what happened to my toothbrush? I couldn't find it at all this morning." Lincoln queried his family, it was not the biggest deal to him, they kept a good number of spare toothbrushes just in case something ever happened to theirs, though one practically vanishing into thin air like that was weird.
"No idea dude, I usually don't pay attention to anyone else's toothbrush but my own." Luna responded before stuffing another forkful of pancake into her mouth, not seeing it as that big of a deal.
"It wasn't me; I swear, there's no 'cavities' in my story." Luan could not resist, several of the siblings groaning out at the pun, Lynn swore that joke was so bad it made her head hurt worse than it already did.
"I really hate her." The aggressive split personality grumbled, sounding not too energetic currently. The sporty Loud found it amusing imagining them suffering through one of Luan's comedy routines, even if personally she had a similar level of tolerance to the awful puns.
"Sorry, I don't have a clue." Lynn spoke, wishing she could be of help, though to her recollection she slept like a log last night, it was another weird slumber with no dreams however, she honestly preferred that to the potential nightmares like the one she had yesterday during her short nap. The sports loving girl swore Lucy was staring at her, it was hard to be certain due to Lucy's bangs covering her eyes. Lynn tried to divert her own gaze away, looking to Lily sat beside her.
"Oh dear, Lily still isn't the cleanest of eaters yet, is she?" Lynn heard the maternal personality chime up, she looked to see Lily had a good bit of crumbs and mess on her face, the sports loving Loud rolled her eyes, it was normal to her, Lily was a million times better with her food than she was two years ago, that much she was sure of.
"You're getting just as much of it on you as you are getting in you, Lily." Lynn smirked, thinking it was actually pretty cute, the aspiring sports star grabbing a napkin before beginning to wipe off Lily's face. A lot of the family at the table were finding the interaction to be cute, normally the Loud parents or Luna would handle Lily during breakfast, no one was complaining about the extra hand though.
"Thank you." Lily said with a smile once cleaned up, still not the most talkative, Lynn smiled warmly while ruffling her blonde hair a little, before returning to her own breakfast.
"She's sure in a good mood today." Lola could not help but whisper to her twin, the red capped wearing girl gave a small shrug. Lana could not really comment on it, Lynn junior had basically paid her and Lisa's allowance yesterday with how much extra money they were given with the initial 200 dollars to put towards repairing Luna and her bandmate's instruments, as far as the mechanically inclined Loud could tell, the sports lover was in a great mood since last night.
"Hm?" Lynn was distracted when the sound of her cell phone ringing suddenly started, she took it out of her pocket, seeing it was Clyde that was calling her, much to her confusion. She was surprised he even knew her cell phone number, an eyebrow raised. "I'll be back in a sec'." Lynn excused herself from the table, being more or less done with her own share of breakfast for the time being, she stepped to the staircase, wanting to get her jacket that hung from the coatrack.
"Hey, are you alright?" Lynn answered, still feeling guilty for yesterday, he took a hit on her behalf after all, it was not the most damaging thing, that did not really make it better in her head however.
"Hey Lynn, yeah I'm doing great, is this a bad time?" Clyde asked, he did not sound as nasally anymore, thankfully his nose had healed back to normal more or less since yesterday.
"Nah, I was just finishing breakfast. What's up?" The 5th oldest Loud responded while putting on her jacket, sliding her arms through one sleeve at a time, not caring at all about the fact her many sisters were definitely trying to eavesdrop on the conversation from the kitchen, Lincoln did not have to pretend much, he already knew everything that transpired yesterday since Lynn had told him, and Lily was not able to really understand what was going on so she ignored it as well.
"Well, I was just wanting to thank you for yesterday, I really wasn't of much help in that fight." Clyde started, sounding apologetic and feeling pretty bad about how worthless he had been. "You didn't have to do it, but I appreciate you defending me like that. I just wanted you to know I owe you one, consider it like a bro-favor." Lincoln's best friend continued; he had tried to get ahold of the brunette last night, to no avail sadly, Lynn had missed his call due to having been too focused on her diary at the time.
"Jeez, he's like a stray dog, you treat it nice once and it just never leaves you alone." The obsessed personality could not help but insult the bespectacled boy, the Highschool sports star rolled her eyes, taking a seat on the staircase.
"Thanks, but you really don't owe me anything, if anything I owe you... I want you to know something, you aren't nearly as much of a wuss as I thought you were. I'll figure out some way to pay you back" Lynn decided to compliment him, she felt like they were friends at this point, she had never really been able to consider Clyde a real friend from a personal standpoint before now, she guessed he had been viewing things in a different light entirely.
"Gee, thanks." Clyde responded sarcastically, though that was a pretty huge compliment coming from the sporty Loud, even he could tell that much from how genuine her tone was. "So, I'll see you at school?" He quirked, the brunette thought about it for a moment before reaching into her coat pocket and taking out the shark tooth, looking at it resting in her palm.
"Sorry, I've got plans already, I'll hang out some other time." Lynn told him goodbye, hanging up the call at that point, pocketing her phone and the shark tooth once again before stepping towards the front door, seeing many of her sisters putting on what was commonly called the 'act natural' plan in the living room. Lynn had been a part of those types of moves enough to know it well, it was so obvious when they tried to put on the act that it was painful. The brunette knew most of them had been listening in though, they were not subtle in the slightest, she opened the front door.
"I'm going to walk to school today, Mom! Bye!" Lynn shouted into the kitchen while standing by the open door, Lincoln heard this and stood up, hurrying over to his sports loving sibling.
"I'm going to just walk too, bye everyone!" Lincoln also said goodbye, the sporty Loud raised an eyebrow at this, biting the inside of her mouth nervously, as her only brother would definitely needlessly complicate what she had in mind this morning.
"Well, if you're both sure, have a good day!" Rita called back to her children, the front door closing pretty quickly, the rest of the Loud siblings immediately relaxed, six of the remaining seven sisters were all looking to one another immediately.
"Who do you think Lynn was talking to?" Lana had to bring it up, she would be working more on the broken instruments right now with Lisa, though they both had to leave for school themselves in a couple of minutes, Lisa may be a genius, but she still had to put up with school for the social aspect more than anything. The two had stayed up late even to work on the initial startup to the repairs simply as a favor to Luna and Sam.
"I don't know, but it sure sounded like they had her 'number'." Luan's pun made most of them groan in irritation. "I mean, she didn't want us to hear who it was." Luan continued by adding onto the conversation, that was the biggest interesting part to her and the other siblings, normally Lynn did not care about who could hear her on the phone, even for important stuff.
"Do you think she got a boyfriend?" Lola had to throw the suggestion out there, getting a grin on her face, hearing that seemed to silence the whole room, none of them could really knew what to think about it.
"That would certainly clarify her strange behavior as of late." Lisa had to concur with her older sister, now the child genius was wondering if he was the one that Lynn had gotten all that money from last night, the child prodigy would bring it up, though remembered that she had been requested to remain silent about the payment to help repair the music instruments.
"I've seen her acting weird in the middle of the night for the last two days now." Lucy claimed, that had been why she had been staring at her older sister during a lot of breakfast, she had been debating on inquiring on just what it was Lynn actually had been doing in the middle of each night.
"What do you mean, Lucy?" Lana quirked while adjusting the red cap on her own head, the goth Loud had gotten all of her sister's attention with the statement she had made.
"I found her in the basement one night, and she was really happy and wide awake for three am. And this morning I woke up early and tried to go to the bathroom, the door was locked, I tried knocking, I heard Lynn's voice, like I had scared her; she wouldn't answer though so I just used the bathroom downstairs. She was back in bed when I came back up." The young goth explained to her siblings what she had seen the last few days, coincidentally being the one at both events that she had no real explanations to, if it was related to talking to a boyfriend, then it made sense with Lynn being so secretive. That did little to help the gossip that the sisters enjoyed.
It seemed like Lynn had gotten exactly what she wanted, her family to be in a state of confused curiosity instead of worrying about her, the sporty Loud had deliberately mislead them into the best distraction she could think of, their own imaginations. The many sisters were not able to resist gossiping immediately, all of them equally curious yet not able to pry any deeper since Lynn had more or less fled before any of them could ask questions either.
Lincoln had been following Lynn as they walked down the sidewalk, he could tell she had something stuck on her mind, though he just hoped everything was alright.
"Alright Lynn, what's going on?" The bucktooth teenager had to inquire, he was worried for her, the brunette was not able to hide it from him that well, Lincoln could tell when someone was just trying to distract his family as well, he had done it plenty of times himself, and had been asked to help act as said distraction by his sisters many more.
"I'm not going to school today." Lynn replied, she still could rely on the convenience of her skull injury to act as a pretty useful get out of school free card for the time being, she did not want to waste this morning there when she could focus it more on correcting this 'incident' involving Luna and Sam's wrongdoers.
"I know it was Clyde calling you, how do you think he got your number?" Lincoln raised an eyebrow, initially finding it odd how his older sister had gone out of her way to hide who was calling, it was clear how intentional it was to him though.
"This is so boring... Think we can get him to hold our hand on this walk?" The obsessed personality suggested, the brunette wanted to slam her own head into the nearest stop sign hearing that, she just ignored it with a sigh, at least the depressed one was suppressed for the time being.
"He was just checking up on me and telling me he owed me one, that's all. Clyde thinks I fought for him yesterday." Lynn explained to her brother, she had promised not to lie to him anymore about anything involving her current mental condition, she was okay with it currently, though she knew that it would become an ever-increasing hassle overtime.
"Well, you did beat up two guys for hitting him." Lincoln reminded her of what she did, even if his older sister had done it merely as a convenient excuse to satisfy the aggressive personality by indulging it, Clyde probably saw it in completely different light however.
"Yeah, I'm going to pay a visit to this Adrian guy, Sam told me where I could find him last night." Lynn confessed with no further hesitation what her intentions were for today, she was currently looking over her cell phone, trying to dig up more information on the supposed abandoned factory downtown that Adrian liked to practice at. The sports loving Loud suddenly felt herself get stopped when her brother grabbed her right hand.
"Are you nuts!? You already have done enough; you've fixed any damage they did!" Lincoln argued, if anyone should be even going near Adrian, it should be him, just because he was the band manager, as much as he appreciated Lynn's help, he was scared that she was not fighting the voices in her head as much as being manipulated by them.
"This jerk threatened Luna's whole band! He may as well of threatened our family... I wasn't even planning on fighting any of them, it's the maternal one that wants to go talk to them." The auburn-haired girl insisted, she was not even sure why the motherly split personality seemed so insistent on talking to Adrian, whereas the aggressive mindset was obviously wanting to get into a fight any chance they were given.
"I don't care which one of them wants to go down there! Lynn, I can't just play dumb when I know you're walking into danger!" Lincoln exclaimed in frustration, though he knew that once she had her mind set on something, it was rather hard to break her out of it, the sports loving Loud was one of, if not the most stubborn sibling in his family. He saw her looking him directly in the eyes, starting to become irritated herself.
"Lincoln, last night was the most peace I had from the voices in a long time. I was able to get half of them to shut up, I'm sure this is the right thing to do!" Lynn implored her only brother to not stop her on this, the white-haired boy could see the desperation in his older sibling's eyes, she truly believed this, it was upsetting for him to hear just how far she would be willing to go to stop them, even if only temporarily.
"... Fine." Lincoln threw his hands up in defeat. Lynn smiled, thinking she had finally gotten him to concede to this, no matter how bad of an idea he thought this was. "I promised if you couldn't stop yourself, I'd be there to stop you, so I'll tag along." The bucktooth boy repeated his words from yesterday, the sports loving Loud felt relieved to hear that, just as she was about to hug him, he stopped her by placing his hands on her chest.
"But you have to do something for me." Lincoln said, his sister huffed, she knew it wouldn't be that easy to get him on board with her plan.
"Anything, you name it." Lynn did not fight against this, she assumed it would be a rather mundane simple task.
"You need to talk to Lisa about what's going on." The middle Loud child came out and said his request in a straight forward manner, he noticed his older sister's expression beginning to go from joyous to angered in a matter of moments. "I know, I know, you said you didn't want this getting out, I understand you're scared about what people will think about you if they find out about this." Lincoln began, motioning for her to calm down and let him explain himself before she tore his head off, he presumed metaphorically, though would not judge her for wanting to do it literally at this point.
"You should've just listened to me. I was right in the end..." The depressed personality began, Lynn felt her heartrate starting to pick up again.
"He's worried about you, it's sweet." The maternal voice tried to assure.
"We can just force him to be quiet, it won't be that hard." The aggressive split personality chuckled confidently.
"If he won't stop running his mouth, then just use your mouth to make him stop. Then you'll be able to blackmail him to be yours forever too! It's a win-win!" The obsessed personality gave the worst idea of them all, Lynn felt like her head wanted to explode, she tried to remain calm, knowing she might lose control to one if she lost her cool. Lincoln could tell he had upset her, and he felt bad, swallowing hard as he tried to not lose confidence now.
"You need help from someone that knows this stuff, yeah Lisa hates psychology, but she's a professional, she probably gives you the best chance you can have to beat those voices for good!" Lincoln pressed further, trying to insist that it was alright for Lynn to trust their family members, he knew that she would rather die than let this secret get out, but if he was able to get her to confide in their many siblings one at a time, then maybe it would be a lot easier to handle. The bucktooth boy doubted there was any chance in convincing her to tell anyone else without great reasoning, he was actually shocked at just how ashamed Lynn saw to admit she needed help, it made him feel awful.
"Plus, you pretty much bought her silence with that extra money you gave her when you were paying for the repairs." He added, seeing really no reason at all to not turn to their 2nd youngest sister for help in this matter as well, Lynn held her head with one hand, thinking over all her brother said, she took in a deep breath, exhaling slowly in an effort to calm down.
"Do you think Lisa can actually help?" Lynn had to ask for his honest thoughts on that, she wondered if there was something he had planned up his sleeve that she was walking right into, so far, her brother seemed to be completely honest if not increasingly scared.
"As long as you work with her and tell her the truth, then yeah, I think she can do it. You have to give her a real shot though." Lincoln vouched for Lisa, after all, he had doubted Lisa and Lana could even repair the damaged musical instruments, they were able to do it easily if what the child prodigy told them was right, the only thing that could stop Lisa from helping, is Lynn's stubborn nature at this point.
"He wants us to become a lab rat for someone that thinks we're as stupid as Leni?" The aggressive mindset could not help but point out what it seemed like, Lynn found herself grabbing her left hand and causing pain to shoot out just from the mere touch of the sore limb to quiet the depressed voice before it could chime up next.
"... Fine. I'll ask Lisa for help, AFTER the instruments are fixed." Lynn gave in, seeing no other choice in the matter but to agree, Lincoln was right in that she needed the help of an actual professional, the sports loving Loud was too scared to talk to their genius sibling though, Lisa had spent a lot of years testing various science experiments on her family in trade for favors, Lisa used to even have a thorough camera system spying on the whole family, though most of those were removed at the insistence of their parents.
"Why after?" Lincoln questioned, his older sister turning her back to him as she resumed walking, not hiding her irritation with her brother at the moment.
"Because she needed the help first." Lynn sighed; in reality the brunette felt like she was not important enough to take priority over any of her siblings, the brunette's confidence was starting to falter pretty fast. Lincoln did not argue with his older sister, he was just happy to have gotten her to agree at all, and with zero bruising, he just hoped that Luna or Sam didn't find out about them literally playing hooky from school to go confront Adrian.
Downtown Royal Woods was a rather strange place, it wasn't necessarily bad, it was in an awkward position, half of the area was under renovation efforts basically, any of the old businesses that were there were mostly bought out, taken over, then failed by the new owners until they shut down, only for the husks of buildings to be bought by the city and turned into whatever was needed most at the moment.
At the moment, Lincoln and Lynn were both checking their phones while at a bus stop, not looking for a ride, they were trying to rest their legs. They had been to two abandoned factories, the latter of which they got chased out of by several construction workers, it wasn't hard to get away thankfully.
"Maybe Sam was wrong about what she said last night?" Lincoln suggested, by now he was thinking they had been wasting their time this morning, he did not even know what the odds were that Adrian was even still using this place for practice even. At first, they had tried tracking the King Woofer band through social media, no luck since they had no presence there, the only other option was to research factories that had been shut down 5 years ago.
"No, she had to be right... One thing I'm still confused about, how did Adrian know where her band liked to practice at?" Lynn spoke out while trying to check for half decade old factories that had been around, the white-haired teenager was more or less running interference now with text messages, mostly trying to keep where he was rather secret since he knew once it was time for school to let out, their cover story would be useless beyond that moment.
"Well, either someone told him, or he followed them there..." Lincoln held his head with one hand and groaned, annoyed at not making that connection sooner, he hated imagining anyone stalking any member of his family, for any reason, even if the Loud family were all exceptional at tailing one another. The more he thought about it, the harder he found it to fault Lynn for wanting to track Adrian and his bandmates down now.
"Maybe we're thinking about this wrong." The bucktoothed teenager suddenly felt a lightbulb go off in his head, his older sister leaning back on the bus bench and looking to him with a quirked eyebrow. "We've been looking at all the big factories, if I owned a band and needed a place to practice, I'd want to make it feel like home, I'd need to make sure it was safe to be at." He started, his older sister getting the same train of thought as she snapped her fingers.
"And a huge place would make that impossible to do." Lynn finished for him, the aspiring sports star and her brother both had big smiles on their faces upon making this realization, they only knew of one old forgotten factory that fit under the category of being small, having been able to pull it up in their time spent searching, they wasted no time heading back off with renewed vigor.
It took them another half hour to get to the smallest abandoned factory they had been able to find, essentially the only one that could fit the small size description. It was rather strange, the abandoned building only had two ways into it, an old roll up metal door, a pair of doubles door, and a window that did not look like it was as much busted out and poorly covered up with trash bags and tape.
"I think we're in the right place, Lynn." Lincoln told his older sister, pointing to a decent sized red truck that was parked out of the way to the side, at first Lynn had no clue what he meant, until she saw what she thought was the band logo for King Woofer engraved in the side of the truck's right door, like someone had done it with a knife.
"Yikes, that is rough..." Lynn cringed seeing that, their family had never even done that much damage to Vanzilla in their life, then again that old Junker was falling apart more and more each passing month, with only Lana keeping it held together at this point.
"Lynn? Are you alright?" Lincoln saw his older sister holding her head in pain, it had been throbbing in pain though now that they were here it had only increased.
"Sorry, headache." She jokily replied with a weak forced grin.
"Let me in there, I'll make him EAT that shark tooth!" The aggressive split personality exclaimed, clearly giddy to have a chance at a brawl.
"We should talk to them, they really hurt not just Luna and Sam's feelings, they need to apologize to their whole band." The maternal mindset weighed her own opinion out there even if it was readily apparent already. The two voices in Lynn's head might not be directly fighting, though her skull sure felt increasingly sorer the more they talked.
"Do I have a choice in which one of you takes over?" Lynn spoke out, receiving no response much to her annoyance. Lincoln was becoming nervous, while the aspiring sports star had told him about what happened, he never had witnessed any of these different Lynn's, Clyde was the one with the closest experience with them according to her.
"Okay Lincoln, I'm going to... stop fighting them now, whichever one comes out just, don't leave me alone. Please." The brunette announced her intention, her voice hesitant and unnerved as she pleaded with him not to leave her alone no matter what, since giving into the aggressive one worked at school, she assumed she could simply give into the maternal personality just as easily.
"Don't worry Lynn, I'm here." Lincoln assured, giving a comforting smile, though Lynn could tell just by looking in her only brother's eyes that he was terrified. She did not get a chance to say anything further, she felt another surge of pain shoot through her broken skull, it was like someone had hit her in the back of the head with a hammer. Lynn's vision began to go blurry as everything began to fade to black again, she tried to step forward only to stumble.
"Whoa, I got'cha!" Lincoln had to dart forward and catch Lynn when she suddenly went limp without much warning, he breathed a sigh of relief when catching her. There was a moment where the white-haired boy considered simply getting her away from this place before something irreversible could happen, though by now he was in pretty much full agreement with her about not being able to ignore Adrian, mostly due to that stalking revelation
"Lynn?" Lincoln spoke in worry, the number of questions in his head only increasing in number each passing moment she spent knocked out like a light, he was scared that something had happened, that something suddenly changed, even as she lay breathing in his arms.
After what felt like an eternity, though in reality was at most a minute, he saw his sister starting to open her eyes once again. "Mhm..." She mumbled; the bucktooth Loud helped her back onto her feet.
"Is everything okay, Lincoln?" She asked him, Lincoln felt uneasy, Lynn looked rather relaxed as she kept her hands together and kept her posture up, she had a bright smile on her face and looked purely aglow, it was as if she radiated pure positivity.
"You're not the mean personality, right?" Lincoln had to ask, even if it sounded like a dumb question, though he felt equally uneasy knowing he was no longer talking to his sister technically, it was like there was barely any sign of Lynn left when a personality took over.
"Now that's not a nice thing to say to someone." Was her response as she put a hand on his head and messed with his hair. Her tone of voice sounded purely innocent and heartfelt, as if immense care was behind each word she said. The brunette seemed to take notice in her own hair though, beginning to reach back and fiddle with the band that was holding it into a ponytail.
"Sorry." Lincoln apologized, unsure why, it just felt like the right response to say at the moment, his head was mostly going blank from being overwhelmed by the situation. At least the maternal personality would be easy to watch, it seemed to hold no ill will, or really even a hint of anything bad about them, that was what made Lincoln so suspicious of it to begin with, the other personalities in Lynn's head according to her were all volatile to put it best.
"You just want to talk to them, right?" Lincoln wondered what the maternally possessed Lynn was doing, until her hair was unbundled, now free and purely flowing once again. It was nice to see his older sister so relaxed and carefree for once, the bucktooth boy had to remind himself that it still was not Lynn at the moment, and that made his heart ache with guilt, he felt like a failure for not being able to do more, though he had to do all he could now, for Lynn's sake.
"Of course, I really detest fighting." The maternal personality spoke with a hum, she began to step towards the pair of rusty old double doors for the abandoned factory. The teenage boy tried to think for a moment, following his older sister along.
"Hey, uhm, is it okay if I call you Miss Lynn instead? I know she just calls you maternal, but it feels wrong calling you Lynn..." Lincoln decided to suggest calling the personality something else while it was out, Miss Lynn sounded like it had a good ring to him since she was acting more motherly, plus her more formal behavior made it sound more appropriate to the middle Loud child.
"You can call me whatever you like." Miss Lynn did not argue against his request, more than happily agreeing to having an actual name, even if it was more like an addition at best. With that settled, she raised her knuckle up before knocking on the double doors.
"Oh?" The door did not resist the knock, actually it opened on its own as if someone had not closed it all the way. That felt rather strange to the maternally possessed Lynn, the brunette saw Lincoln open the door the rest of the way as he stepped inside the poorly lit building, he was actually surprised to see it had power at all.
"Perhaps they aren't... here?" Miss Lynn quirked a brow as the two of them stepped deeper inside, when they turned into one of the smaller rooms that was clearly intended to be some sort of receival area for deliveries, it looked like it had been turned into a full-blown home. The Loud siblings could see two beds in a corner, a small tv, there were some instruments sat up and resting more towards the left side of the room, a bass and an electric guitar respectively, though they looked like they had not been maintained in a while.
"This is weird, it looks like a living room mixed with a bedroom." Lincoln commented, he was anticipating the place to have a vibe more akin to Luna and Sam's practice location, this felt a lot more like a home.
"Adrian? Are you back alre-…" A deeper gravelly female voice could be heard, the two Loud siblings turned to the door that led to another room, the person they saw looked like a woman Luna's age, she had curly blonde hair and was wearing a red t-shirt and white coat. The three all stared at one another, Lynn was the only one that looked calm currently, having anticipated running into more people than just Adrian after all.
"Hello, I apologize for the intrusion, the door was open though." The maternal personality apologized; aware how awkward this might look for them. "I'm Lynn Loud, and this is my brother, Lincoln." Miss Lynn gave a curtsy upon introducing herself, Lincoln found himself just staring wide eyed at his older sister, it was just so surreal seeing Lynn of all people acting like this, even if it was the split personality currently in control doing the actions.
"H-Hiya, I'm sorry about this, we came to talk to Adrian." Lincoln nervously raised a hand as he spoke his greeting. The Loud siblings saw the older woman move her hair out of her eyes, still clearly absorbing this, she put her hands on her hips and exhaled.
"I'm getting a beer." Was all she said before stepping away again, looking exasperated already.
After the rather strange introduction, the three now found themselves sat around in various spots in the makeshift living room, the young woman chugging a beer bottle like she needed it to survive the two Loud children's presence.
"I'm Brell, I'm Adrian's girlfriend... Er, fiancée, sorry, still not used to that." Brell told them her name the second the bottle was free from her mouth, she was not a rude person it seemed like, Lincoln had been expecting far worse. From what Luna had told them, Adrian had turned into a worse person completely after he had started dating Brell and they formed King Woofer, the Loud siblings had been anticipating a group of unruly types, the two could see the discernable golden band on her ring finger.
"Congratulations." Miss Lynn said, looking quite pleased at the news despite barely knowing them. Lincoln rubbed his head, sure his life was weird, he never anticipated it getting this strange however.
"Uh, Thanks." Was all the blonde could get out before that awkward silence returned, Brell groaned and leaned back in her chair, resting the beer bottle aside on a small table. "Okay, I'm pretty crappy at this hospitality stuff, and even worse with people younger than me, so just tell me what's going on." Brell stated, wanting them to not beat around the bush any longer.
"Alright... Do you know of a band called the Moon Goats?" Lincoln decided to be straight forward in this since she asked them to be. "I'm their manager." He said, he could see Brell rest her head in her palm, trying to think clearly about it.
"It sounds familiar, it's a lot better of a name than King Woofer that's for sure." Brell could not resist laughing, Lincoln could not judge band names, one of his favorite bands was named SMOOCH.
"You used to go to the same School as the members of the band, Luna and Sam formed it with Mazzy and Sully." Miss Lynn explained, using all of the band members names to see if any of them would jog the older woman's memory, after another few seconds, Brell blinked in surprise.
"Oh! Luna! Yeah, she was hard to forget. Everyone that I knew called her lonely Luna." Brell began, looking uncertain if it was a positive or negative memory really. "I won't lie, I kind of was scared of her." She confessed to that, now more than remembering her Highschool classmates.
"Huh? Scared of Luna? I've never heard anyone say that before in my life." Lincoln responded in confusion, he never recalled Luna mentioning any such nickname like 'lonely Luna' either, it did not sound like a term meant for bullying though, as much as a nickname.
"What made Luna so scary?" The split personality controlling Lynn attempted to inquire, the girl with messy blonde hair sat across from them now looked rather nervous just because of the fact a supposed teenage band manager for someone Brell used to not treat the best in her younger years was here.
"It was just how she acted, she seemed all sweet in class, especially to her girl. But we'd always find her alone in the music room, playing by herself, one time me and Adrian snuck into the gym and decided to have a little fun exploring the school in the dark." Brell began to recount the story of her personal experience with Luna, even if they had never truly interacted one to one.
"We heard some weird crying coming from down the hallway we were in, and when we went to check it out, we found Luna there in the music room, she was just playing her guitar and crying, she looked terrible... I thought she was a ghost. We bolted when she almost noticed us there." She finished with that; it was just an accidental interaction. Lincoln knew what Brell meant, Luna had a tendency to sneak into the school music room whenever she was extremely upset years ago, it was what the rock loving Loud would do to try and hide any true pain from her family, while it was hit and miss, they all knew she did it.
"You were scared of Luna because you thought she was a ghost? Our sister's been called many things, scary is a new one though." Miss Lynn could not help but giggle, Brell looked embarrassed to even reply to that, simply picking up her beer bottle and continuing to chug away at the contents within.
"Hey Brell, I'm back-… Huh?" They suddenly heard a deeper voice, the Loud siblings turning their attention to the door they had entered from, they saw a rather large heavyset man standing there wearing a leather coat and jeans with a bandanna around his head, his hands and arms looked like they were covered in various oil stains.
"Adrian, this is Lynn and Lincoln, they're uh... lonely Luna's siblings, and he's her band manager." Brell saved the Loud children the trouble of introducing themselves.
"I haven't heard that name in a long while. What's going on?" Adrian requested to know what it was the two were there for, it was clear just by hearing the name brought back some creepy memories. Lynn stood up; she reached into her pocket and held out the shark tooth for the big man to see for himself, he hesitantly plucked it from the sporty Louds palm, looking amazed to be seeing it again.
"Somebody has been following Luna, they went to where her band practices, they broke their instruments and this shark tooth was left behind. They said this was your guitar pick." Miss Lynn put it blatantly why they were here, the entire time not dropping that warm smile on her face. Lincoln took notice of just how the couple before them both had a look of exhausted dread on their faces.
"Yeah... It WAS mine, Jake stole it from me a few weeks back." Adrian claimed, his grip tightening around the shark tooth as he clearly treated it as a cherished item, neither him nor his fiancée were happy at what they were hearing.
"Who's Jake?" Lincoln chirped, finding it to be convenient that the item that Adrian supposedly valued as a guitar pick would be stolen and then left behind by said thief that destroyed the instruments.
"Jake was in our band, he went really overboard the last month, he started saying we weren't practicing often enough or playing well, nothing was ever good enough for him. He really lost his mind when that underground competition was announced." Brell claimed in her significant other's defense, she did not blame the two for being suspicious though, why would anyone trust a pair of glorified deadbeats that lived in an abandoned factory?
"We kicked him out two weeks ago, he carved the band name into her truck and the hood of my car... We didn't know he was doing this though." Adrian exhaled, sounding disappointed in his old friend, people could change with minimal effort, Lincoln could tell that much since Lynn was a pretty good example of that very fact to him currently, it did make sense though.
"He was mad when he found out you were going to break-up the band, wasn't he?" Miss Lynn questioned, it sounded more matter of fact however, Lincoln was not sure what she meant, it seemed like a rather random thing to say. Brell and Adrian seemed hesitant to respond. "Your instruments, they look like they've been played but not taken care of, that says a lot about how dedicated a band is." The maternal personality controlling Lynn continued, her little brother had not noticed it initially, however now that it was pointed out it was pretty apparent.
"We love music, really, but we aren't good enough to make a career of it." Brell did not hesitate to blurt it out, she would be drinking more, sadly her beer bottle had run dry by now.
"Jake was the one who signed us up, he didn't tell us until after though... I'm just trying to make ends meet at this point. But I'm so sorry for what he's done to Luna." Adrian apologized, the large man looking like he more blamed himself than anything.
"Hm? Why are you apologizing to me? You should be telling Luna and her band you're sorry." Miss Lynn said, the couple looking at her in confusion.
"M-Miss Lynn?" Lincoln nervously spoke, that kind tone was there, yet now it sounded rather firm, as if she was trying to make her point clear.
"We don't have anything to apologize for. We didn't do jack!" Brell pointed a finger at her, she was not a fan of what she saw as two kids coming into what was her home as far as she cared, and suddenly saying they had to apologize for something they didn't do.
"I know, but Jake was your responsibility, wasn't he? You all depended on each other it sounds like... You could have made sure he stopped, or got him help, you all were great friends I assume." The brunette tilted her head a little, her eyes glazing over. "He did it to make sure your band had a better chance in the competition, he probably is going to do it to even more bands that entered too. Yet you have the audacity to lay around, drinking, doing nothing, and pretending you don't have any responsibility in this?" The maternal personality did not sound happy anymore, that positive aura was now starting to turn into one that Lincoln swore he had only seen from Rita on her worst day.
The room was silent, to the other two, Lynn had a fair point, they could not bring themselves to argue or say anything, it was clear that King Woofer once was a tightknit group of friends, with the threads being snapped from two of the members wanting to move on to the next part of their life.
"I can help set Jake straight, if you'll apologize to Luna." The possessed sports loving Loud crossed her arms, looking like a parent awaiting a response from children they had just scolded, Lincoln was half expecting a fight to break out on the spot, the maternal personality had essentially spat in the face of a man twice her size and weight. After a second however, he saw Adrian return the shark tooth to her.
"I abandoned our friend cause things got tough; you aren't wrong about that, we didn't even give him a heads up, we just told him one day at lunch like it was nothing... Please, don't let him ruin anyone else's equipment." Adrian nodded, his gaze cast to the ground as he felt Brell holding his arm in an attempt to comfort him.
"Thank you." Miss Lynn's warm personality was back in full now, Lincoln felt the tension in the room beginning to vanish rather swiftly from there, much to his relief. For someone that claimed they loathed fighting, the maternal split personality sure had no hesitation to let her true thoughts out.
After a few minutes, the two Loud siblings found themselves leaving the abandoned factory that the former band lived within, Lincoln had to wait outside for Lynn for a minute though, Brell and Adrian had something they wanted to ask her so she had stayed behind to talk a little longer. Lincoln was still sweating bullets even now that they both were outside, he swore the maternal voice controlling Lynn had not even flinched at all in there, whereas he spent the entire time fearing the uncertainty.
"You really made it happen, you got them to say sorry, that was amazing." Lincoln had to compliment Miss Lynn, seeing that bright smile of hers not waning at all as she turned to him.
"They aren't bad people, now we know who actually caused that trouble. With Adrian's help, meeting with Jake shouldn't be any issue at all." Miss Lynn said quite confidently, the bucktooth boy was not able to deny how impressed he was, he believed she could do it pretty easily too, they knew what had made this former band member so upset to commit these crimes to begin with.
"Well, you did great Miss Lynn." Lincoln had to pause, he still was not used to saying Lynn's name like that, it made him feel more like an overly dedicated assistant, or like a butler at one of Lola's tea parties. "So now what? You just let Lynn go? Do I have to catch her again?" The middle Loud sibling queried, not sure how this worked, he noticed the maternal personality controlling Lynn take a deep breath of the fresh air.
"Well, I would like to go dress shopping. I won't be able to meet with Jake for a while, and I'd like some new clothes." The maternal personality said, the bucktooth teenager blinked, just hearing that sentence coming from Lynn's mouth at all was a rather unbelievable occurrence to him.
"H-Hold on now, I thought you were just going to talk to Adrian, and then you'd let Lynn come back once it was done?" Lincoln tried to remind the maternal personality that currently had control over his sister, he had thought that the maternal personality would be suppressed after completing a good deed, just like Lynn had told him, the white-haired boy seemed mistaken in this case, then again it was not a good deed that they had done, it was more like they interrogated two people that were innocent in the matter. Miss Lynn merely tilted her head while casting an innocent glance to him.
"I'm sorry, but I don't remember saying that. It's not nice to put words in other people's mouths you know." She said, Lincoln felt his heart sinking into his stomach, he was scared, thinking that he and Lynn had been tricked now by the maternal personality. "Lynn needs to rest, hearing those voices all the time really, really tires her out, with me in control she can recover." The maternal personality continued, looking quite pleased at the moment.
"Well..." Lincoln found himself pausing, he swallowed hard, did he really have a choice in this matter? He had no clue. "Uhm, alright, I guess we're going to the mall." The white-haired teenager said with uncertainty, Lynn getting some mental rest sounded appealing enough on its own, he sighed, there was nothing he could do on this matter, the sporty Loud did not tell him of any ways to free her if she was under control after all.
"Thank you, I'll buy you some ice cream when we get there." Miss Lynn sounded pleased to not have to argue further, Lincoln however, felt dirty, now all he could think about was the last thing Lynn had said to him before she had relented control over to one of her split personalities.
"Don't leave me alone. Please." Those words rang in his mind, the bucktooth boy hoped that Lynn would not kill him when she got control over her body again, because he knew that she was going to be unhappy about this unprompted shopping spree. Lincoln was assuming the sooner he cooperated, the faster he got his actual sister back from the one controlling her.