July 18th, 2030 - An Hour Later
"You have no idea how happy I am..." Lori presented herself to them, entering into the holding cell, a wife took that felt more like a room of a rundown mental asylum. Uncleaned and of a dark, depressing gray color, she took her slow steps, circling around the five Loud siblings, part of the very family she belonged to. She spotted black shorts and a pure white tank top, running a finger around them. "It's been so long, so let's catch up, shall we?"
The only person currently awake happened to be Lincoln. Lincoln, the fighter with no restraints attacked to his own character. He was in metal chains, hands tied behind him, so it should not have been hard to break out of, but somehow it was. He tried to, jerking around with his sisters all synchronized with him. And then he had also noticed he was stripped of his armor; how could he forget he had come in with armor?
When Lori made her way into his sightlines, he gritted his pearly whites, showing them off as part of his ravenous look of hatred and bitter rage. Lori, still breathing and in the flesh, formed a sinister smile from her height; she had never looked so morbid or deadly as such before, it was almost like Lincoln was staring up into the eyes of a devil, an antagonistic gaze that read truly disgusting, malicious intent. Intent centered on him, another creature born in a fire, a dark ordeal. And it was the blue eyes he shared; blue eyes, and all that blood coursing through her veins was of the same make-up. And she had raised her hand to him, curling it up into a fist, sending it down to his face.
"Oh, I see that you have a scar on your forehead," she pointed out, mocking him with a laugh. "That's gotta be it, a reminder that you did what you did... And failed."
He reacted violently, gripping on the chains and lunging forward while jerking it all to his favor, shaking his unconscious sisters. "Let me go and I'll show you what it means to succeed," he bluntly vowed, face turning hot red. "I did it once, I will end you again, and this time, I hope you stay in hell-"
She kicked his face, but kept her foot on it, pushing to separate their distance. "Cool it, twerp, there will be no revenge for you. Now, don't get me wrong, I'd very much like to kill you right here and now, but it seems you are an object of interest for, well, you know, Lisa."
Lincoln dragged his face down quickly, suddenly biting right at the bottom of Lori's foot as hard as he can, effectively bringing about a reaction and making her scream. He didn't release his jaws from the grasp of her foot, so Lori yanked it out hard, leaving a chunk of flesh in his mouth, ripped forcibly right out of her foot. She wobbled over and tripped, falling right on her side after that little stumble. "Aurgh! You miserable fuck!"
Even suppressed under power-dampening technology installed into the ceiling, the infernal fight had not abandoned Lincoln, the brutal force of nature. He spat all that he bit out from her, aiming to return it right into her face. "There's plenty more where that came from, you hear?"
Lori rebounded and came in with a barrage of fists, unleashing them all onto Lincoln. She struck his face, his chest, and in many other places she wished to cause great pain and injury to. She tried her hardest to give him hell, the exact same hell he had gifted her when their last skirmish ended in the deaths of- Lori paused and realized that Lincoln had taken most of her friends away from her just like that. He killed the Freights, the last home they'd have ever since the fall of their own. Lincoln, the designated Family Destroyer, never letting Lori accommodate to one where failure and its fear of breaking bonds was a possibility. He took all that away from her, and there was no getting it back. But the balance was ever so clear, equal in nature, a fifty-fifty chance that the victor title belonged to Lori.
No, more like a full hundred; Lincoln was helpless, a restrained captive to the Black Network, and Lori was most pleased. That was, until Lincoln got the better of her, sneaking in quite a move not even she saw coming, and she should have anticipated the resistance, as futile and pointless as it was. Lincoln was still that vicious beast she faced once, it should have made all the difference that she had him where she wanted, but-
"You killed me once, dear Lincy." Lori separated her lips, showing her pearly whites, with definite hatred. "Now I get to even the score by killing you."
And Linka bolted into the room, pushing the steel door wide open with all her superhuman strength. She appeared with a kitchen knife at hand, making a pounce unto Lori, whom barely had the speed time to turn around. The female Lincoln clone wrapped her left hand around Lori, driving her occupied right hand to stab Lori's chest repeatedly. "HA! HAHAHA, GIGGITY-GOO, YOU LET YOUR GUARD DOWN! SMILE FOR THE CAMERA, CLICK!"
Blood immensely ran down Lori's clothes, and the stunned blonde was rasping away while kicking herself back, ramming her backside right into the wall to force Linka off. "GET OFF ME!"
"NEVER!" Linka promised, head smacking right into the cement wall, disorienting her near fatally. Lori didn't think or care for the superchip inside the clone's head. The poor albino girl lost her grip on the knife and found herself physically deactivated, brain short-circuiting with a static noise ringing in her ears. She covered them and screamed wildly, running her legs around randomly, as if she was throwing some sort of childish temper tantrum. "AUNT JEMIMA! MUSHROOMS! LEONARDO DICAPRIO!"
Lori stumbled out of the room with the knife still in her chest, bleeding rapidly away and dripping her innards down for a trail. The longer she stayed in there, the more dead she would be with the power dampeners already halting her own abilities the second she stepped foot in there. Getting out, Lori forced the blade out of her system, and the recuperation process started that fast, wound closing in under five seconds after yanking out Linka's weapon. Great, the first Lincoln clone is really trying to kill me! "F-fucking hell- Damn it, you clone, you are not supposed to be fighting me!"
Linka flashed a thumbs up at Lori, slowly dragging herself to the defeated group of Louds. Luna was barely blinking just as this happened, and it made the clone laugh out loud. "Yes, meet me! Meet me for the first time- Yowzers!" Lori had done her in enough to make her bleed from the side of her head, and the ringing had not stopped for her. "Oh, I'm so going to try and kill you in Act III, Wolverine-Lori. This is just an appetizer-" Linka was soon face-to-face with her original model, the one and only nefarious Lincoln Loud. The both of them exchanged daggers with their eyes, depicting the deathly seriousness only they could be able to pull off- and Linka broke character, snickering without warning. "Oh, my God, you- That! That is the exact look I pictured I had! Oh, it's funny, you-me! It's funny how I get to see myself through the eyes of another, and not just another! Another you! Another-" Linka wheezed in between her lines.
"You are a mistake far worse than what a broken condom would be responsible for," Lincoln insulted with vulgar, attempting to break free yet again.
Luna, fully awake, came to with a headache, and then centered her eyes on Linka. "Oh- Oh, fucking Christ, it really is a fucking clone!"
Linka picked herself up, containing her laughter. "Oh, it is, Luna! It surely is! I, Linka Loud, stand wholeheartedly despicable before you!" She took a bow for the play she had performed. "A clone, however, placed in the wrong team..."
Lori narrowed her eyes, unsure of what the clone meant by this, piecing that it was bad news basically, and her suspicions were painfully correct when Linka sprinted to the panel on the wall behind the Louds. With a few pokes onto the screen, the clone deactivated the power dampeners, releasing the pheno Loud family just as easy as they'd been captured. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! YOU LITERALLY FOUGHT LINCOLN, WHY ARE YOU FREEING HIM?!"
Lincoln shifted his eyes from Linka to the charging Lori, who was already beginning to turn into her wolf-like form. He and Luna busted out fairly easing, jumping as a defensive line. "Luna, wake them up!"
"But you need me-" Luna protested.
"GO!" Lincoln hollered.
Linka got in the way, preventing Lori from attacking her siblings. "There are no sides to choose, only the game is being played, and we are all standing in the board together until we kill each other off, tehe!" She turned to Lincoln and Luna. "Hey, Lincy, just so you know, I beat you to prove to myself that I really am superior, and can best the other clones as well! We have no bad blood!"
Lincoln did not remotely care and went for a direct offensive attack against the clone, throwing his bare fists against Linka, striking onto her some heavy-duty body shots that quickly incapacitated her. The poor clone fell out of the way, and just behind her, Lori had transformed into her animalistic form, roaring away at Lincoln.
Luna was in the midst of shaking her sisters when Lynn, being the third one to join the fight, awoke to find the world slowing down just as fast as the fight had broken out. Luna was frozen, mouth opening wider for Lynn to realize she was screaming, as a slow, deep and distorted voice emitted from her mouth. Behind Luna, Lincoln was running towards one of the nairy beastial creatures in a slow-motion rate, and so was the creature in question. Not to mention the girl with white hair was slowing lifting her leg up, showing her skin to anyone looking at her. It was her turn to partake in this battle, and ran right into the being that was once the strict, bossy sister who manned the household all those times mom and dad were out on their anniversaries.
To the majority of them, it was like a red lightning bolt had taken out Lori in the blink of an eye, devastating the abnormal creature by sending her right into the wall. Lynn got more of an experience and grip on her zoomer abilities, feeling proud and enthusiastic of herself. "Don't ever mess with Adrenaline!"
Linka shook any dirt on her off, picking herself up once again. "Jeez, will you stop knocking me down!? I have yet to assemble myself properly for battle, you know!"
Lori pushed herself out of the wall-crater her body had formed, letting out a bloodcurdling scream. No, more like a legitimate battle cry to summon her three other companions, the Black Network goons and the miscellaneous affiliates- not to mention the other clone whose allegiance and existence was not clear as of yet.
"LEVEN!" Linka cried out, retreating when it was apparent she could not win against three of the original Louds, all of whom were phenos. Just she wait until the twin zoomers awoke, and that would prove to be troublesome for everyone here.
Lynn zagged around the maze of halls and corridors starting at the left side, quickly looking for the exit. And she came across it, only to come back and find multiple armed guards heading to where she had come from, and Lynn went full bowling ball on their asses, knocking the guard pins all over the place in one fell swoop. Rifles clattered along the floor, bodies thudding away, but Lynn didn't stop until she came back to the holding cell, where Lori had just about freed herself, and on the right end of the hallway, the other three overgrown mutts came running, followed by more of the guards.
"No use running! We've got anti-pheno weaponry, able to penetrate through you and neutralize whatever you've got!" Lori sounded so full of herself, getting too cocky about her righteous revenge with a sinister smile through her long mouth.
Right behind the unconscious pair of twins, a blue portal popped up undetected, and out came that same girl with the ninja threads and a pair of katanas, different ones than those she had lost to the Division. These were specialty weapons made with a very special compound not in the periodic table. "Heyah, guess who's back?!"
Lynn got herself ready for a fight against Lori and the entire opposition coming their way, remaining put on the hallway. Luna looked to see Carly Evans-Nguyen sliding her blades out of their scabbards she carried on her back, aiming for the twins, and she, in a second of doubt and helplessness, called for Lynn to jump to the twins' aid when it was apparent they would not be brought back to life this fast. "SAVE THE TWINS!"
And Lynn faced that predicament once again, only in a difference dance; her running to save two of her own, which would let her guard down enough to have them all be surrounded by the enemy before she got them out, or being able to repel everyone back at the cost of these two. And that would have never been the greatest of her choices. The greatest of her choices... Had she done everything correctly based on how she felt... Or did she let protocol, the Bureau programming, define what was more important? And then, she was conflicted. Protocol versus emotion. Her feelings, getting in the way again, driving her to actually go and save the twins, even if it meant a hardship to endure.
One second later, she sent Carly toppling down backwards before the young girl could even cause some injuries on them. The fall broke her grip of both of her katanas, and Carly was taken out of the fight just like that. "Augh, f-freaking-"
Lynn made a frantic rush back to the exit, grabbing both Lola and Lana by the necks of their suits, trying to get them to safety. And she found herself to fail, coming into direct contact with a wall of furry skin, blocking her path long enough to be at a disadvantage. The twins rolled around the ground, quickly attended to by the recently newborn phenos Cristina and Dana. For one, they were unable to be distinguished from one another in their canine forms, so figuring out who was who amounted to an impossible feat. Behind the two, Fiona, still in her default form, had commanded the Network's troops, keeping her distance to see what was happening and when to make her jump into the pending battle. All she had for show was the Network-issued armor over a bare brown bra, and jean shorts, nothing else from that, not even shoes.
Just when it couldn't get any worse, Luna and Lincoln met another group emerging from a second portal inside. From this one, Shepherd himself, a few men, and the two clones had arrived on the frontlines. The very second Lincoln set his blue eyes to Leven, the closest of clones in physical appearance to him, he drew some faint shock on his face, disgruntled had he came here with absolutely no knowledge of anything within the Network. Another clone?!
"Jesus..." Luna herself couldn't believe her eyes. "It's two Lincoln clones!"
"What?!" Lynn looked back rapidly, spotting the shorter Lincoln clone amongst the guard staff. "Holy shit-"
"Hell yeah," Linka cheered, "now it's a party! Oh, silly me! I must have forgotten my autograph booklet, but don't you worry, my bloodline members, I'll-" Shepherd dove torward the clone and slapped some sense into her. It caught every living soul by surprise, with the latter Patriots trying to pinpoint a way out of this. Lincoln, Luna and Lynn looked on while the atmosphere came to a deadly halt, time freezing away as all the eyes of the collective of hostiles were fixated on them. Eyes of those who were in it for personal vendettas, and eyes in it for the job assigned here.
"I have been monitoring the situation, Link-A," Shepherd revealed in a strictly soft tone. "How dare you deactivate the suppressors and instigate a fight against your allies! Have you no sense of loyalty?"
"L-loyalty?" Linka repeated, rubbing her cheek in Shepherd's presence. "Just because you fuckers created me doesn't mean I oughtta show traditional gratitude! Fuck you and fuck that!"
Leven shifted his eyes back and forth between Linka and Lincoln, and then gazed upon the beasts that were Lori and her group, and immediately he found a rage to flare up from deep within. And he had also decided by then where his true allegiance lied with; any soul who made allies of the Freights, these upgraded Wolverine-Freights for that matter, were not at all the good guys. This was both the reasoning of the two clones, the ideology having never been neutralized from their own systems during the breeding process, proving to be colossal failures on Lisa's part.
"Think your next words and choices wisely now..." The words of the puppet were not to be trifled with, and on the account that some sort of disobedience and rebellion would be punishable by death or equal among the Black Network...
Linka backed away from Shepherd's group. "The moment I realized what was, I knew it could not be, and for the sake of the good guys-"
The hallways were revealed to be laced with various traps, and Linka moved on ahead to activate the minigun turrets hidden in the walls. All at once, Linka controlled the turrets, making them cut and shred through the goons right outside. Lynn jumped right back into the room as Lori and her three Freight comrades were heavily pierced by the armor piercing rounds. A grand show of blood and flesh broke out, limbs of multiple guards messing separating from their bodies. Cries and groans emitted, but only a select few of them. The walls cracked apart with every round fired upon the cement, making dust fly out and make a nearly dense fog, also stained with the red of the enemies of the Patriot Division. And this was Linka's intentional doing.
"WHAT THE HELL?!" Lynn was relieved that the turrets had not touched the downed twins, barely calling it no short of a miracle. "LINC, LUNES, HERE'S OUR WINDOW!"
"LINK-A, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Shepherd had let his voice erupt like an active volcano, and the red right on his face had let Linka and the others know he was beyond infuriated, and was so to the degree that he fell on all fours, and began his own untrained transformation into the monster Lisa had implanted within him. His skin turned gray, hair falling off to unveil a bald side. He tore off his clothes with the sharp, white claws where his fingers had been moments ago. He growled, face turning into something much more hideous than the previous creations born in the Network. His eyes had gone to a gray color, lighter than his skin color. The teeth were jagged razors, ready to harm at the bite, ears going pointy like that of an elf's, only this was no fairy tale creature.
Seconds later, James Shepherd readied himself as a battle pawn for Lisa, taking his place as a warrior this time, and no more strings being pulled. He found his place among the super beings, establishing himself as the pheno he had become when the serum had been forced on him until he accepted his new role, and that was because of the animate shadow that lingered onto him, whispering away keywords that guided and influenced him. On this regular day, he was no longer the nationally-wanted James Shepherd, but an exceptional beast as deadly as Lisa's creations and achievements. And he moved in to attack Linka.
That was when Lynn crashed into his plans and shoved him right into his men. Lynn, the only one who genuinely believed Linka, this white-haired clone, was that very same one she had seen a glimpse of when being displaced into the future. The clone had to be protected, even if she was the only one who knew that. It mattered not what Lincoln or Luna thought at the moment, and judging by how things were quickly transposing, it seemed the clone did not want to be a part of the Black Network. But could the others really trust that Linka might not have been hostile? Aftet all, she had done Lincoln in once, proving by that point to be a superior model.
Superior model.
"Lynn, what?!" Luna did not make sense of Lynn actually seemingly protect the clone.
"She's not with them!" Lynn declared to the top of her lungs.
"Do not confuse me as part of this clique!" Linka roared to them, and then set her sights on Leven. "Hey, hey you, I know you don't want this! You're obviously like Lincoln, like me! We're just weapons they wanna use against the Louds! I know it because I can see it all!"
Leven was a zombie, letting his eyes flicker around both Linka and the real Loud siblings. His eyes were narrowed, almost like they were focused on something. He was focused on them, pondering his decision in the heat of the moment. The Louds versus his creators, but the creators he knew nothing about. The creators with some definite and deviant agenda, and since it was now a hundred percent apparent he wasn't the real Lincoln, he questioned it enough that it made him want to turn on his masters. Finally, he spoke pit with the same voice of the original's own. "What is the purpose of the Black Network?"
Lincoln and company stood idly by, wondering what to respond. Linka, however, knew what to say, and had waited for such a moment to get Leven to switch sides with her. "Big brother, it's like I gold you! We're just being used for an organization that kidnaps and turns people into mutated freaks! This is all Lisa's doing, and I'm not gonna have it! I'm not gonna affiliate with the bad guys!"
"B-bad guys?" Shepherd picked himself up, speaking in a deep, raspy voice. "The entirety of Vial Corporation's purpose was to revolutionize and perfect the world, not that any of you would ever have the audacity to understand! Lisa has done all of this in the name of humanity, so that we can thrive and grow past all of our weaknesses and illnesses! Lisa has tried her best to synthesize the perfect human by fusing and encoding the essence of all living creatures and more into the human body, so that we won't die of cancer, gain superior curative abilities, and never have to get sick! We're at the brink of reaching a scientific breakthrough, a literal humongous achievement in the history of mankind, and you, the Patriot Division fuckers, are getting in the way of that because God forbid our actions that you've looked closely be a big no-no! If I have to say it, the Patriot Division is founded on the idea that we are becoming too big of a corporate power and the ones they answer to know it! They wanted us out of the way, that's what we know from our source close to the government! Don't kid yourselves, you are all working for political spooks who will throw you away the second you serve no purpose!"
There was a silence that came about, and Linka backed away to assemble with team Patriots, still keeping her sights set on the enemy Network and on Leven. So far, the clone hadn't made a decision, but Leven did turn his attention to the dropped weapons around him.
Lincoln took a step forward. "Subjecting innocent lives to further your evil science is the deal-breaker for us," he started. "Using actual people to find the ingredients of the perfect human immune to all disease is still immoral no matter how you look at it-"
"Sacrifices had to be made in the process!" Shepherd shouted hoarsely. "We cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs!"
"You... You mean to tell me-" Luna processed what she had just been told. "L-Lisa- My own sister Lisa t-turned me into this... To find out if-?" Her words were breaking in an unsteady manner, her mental state rupturing with that emotional injury. Lisa kidnapped her and her band, killed her band members and left Luna a monster with a quenching thirst for blood in the literal sense, all of it so that the genius could figure out the formula of the perfect human being and how to make it reality. It all came down to that.
"Hold it, hold it! Start the intermission!"
Intermission
Days Earlier - Black Network
Linka strapped on the parachute on her, gripping it tight by the sleeves. She and Carly were messing around sorely for the amusement, having been bored of patrolling the perimeters. They were alone in the lounge room, and the clone was standing right in front of the Hmong girl. Decorated on the parachute was a layer of red paint, and Linka wanted to repaint the walls that color, even if it was polkadots. "Ready?"
"Have I ever told you how crazy and random you are?" Carly ducked down by bending over, her ass facing Linka, and the clone found herself mesmerized enough to stare with her cheeks going red.
"P-PARACHUTE ACTIVATE!" Linka tugged on the backpack's cords which popped the white parachute out. And her silly plan had worked for the most part, making a mess mainly on the ceiling. The parachute had come falling over them like a leaf, covering them as Leven had come in in his zombified state- and only saw a tiny figure thrusting into another figure who was bent over, and his mind only drew the conclusion that Linka had put on a strap-on and had her way with Carly. He distinctly recalled her saying she wanted to mount the foreign girl, either by force or mutually consensual. He guessed she hsd finally achieved her wish and finally got to fuck Carly, and from the backdoor position too, it seemed. As fast as he came in, Leven shook his head and took an exit.
What Linka was really doing was just thrusting her pelvis into Carly, and that wasn't exactly an SFW thing by itself. "WOOOOOOO!"
"Hey, cut it out!" Carly got up and pushed Linka away, removing the parachute off of her. "Stop trying to hump me!"
"But baby, I love you!" Linka escaped the white cloth over her head and broke into a laugh. "Okay, okay, hard to get, huh? I can get down with that! So, wanna go on a date?"
Carly merely tisked away at the clone. "Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?"
"Hey, just you wait, we'll be the best of friends! You, me, and the Leven will be the trio no one would ever expect! Wouldn't that be so much fun?!"
"What?"
"Okay, end it, you twat! End the intermission or perish!"
Now
"Well, that flashback was a hoot, wouldn't you say?" Linka asked, face fixated on you. "Don't worry, babes, more sexual content starting at the base of my moist pussy!"
"Uh..."
Linka decided to run again, this time going for the twins outside. "Quickly, make up your minds to fight or retreat! The Wolverines are regenerating right this minute! Lynn, come help me, I'll lead us all out!"
Lynn followed the clone girl, giving her more than enough trust Lincoln and Luna felt she should not have been giving. They watched both of the girls bolt out of the room, still suspicious of Linka and Leven alike. "Lynn, stop!" Luna wasn't afraid to show her concern, but Lincoln was another case.
"Link-N, with me!" Shepherd advised to the infiltration clone model. "Buy us some time until our super mutts regenerate!"
And that did it; those words alone pushed Leven to the final decision he was on the fritz about. He was treated as an inferior warrior in Shepherd's eyes for sone reason, that reason where it waa believed Leven was not as strong as even one of the Wolverine phenos. Not as strong as the upgraded Lori, and if this was so... Who was to say he was equal to Lincoln Loud himself? To hell with that, he decided, picking up two rifles with both hands. His left one went off and fired away at Shepherd, who was quickly riddled with bullets that either entered his skin or bounced off. It seemed that his body was on the fluctuation due to the lack of handling of his pheno abilities. Gee, if only Linka didn't wipe the entire database before, otherwise he'd known what he had. At least now he could come to terms with it and find out for himself.
Leven circled around Shepherd, coming to team Louds' side and supplied to Lincoln the other rifle he hadn't fired from. "I am not going to play this game..."
"Lana, why are you so heavy!? Oh, wait-" Linka had picked up the grown tomboy and raced away down the hall, away from the bloody mess of Black Network goons and phenos. "Lynn, this way!"
Lynn was following the clone, arms holding Lola. "I already found the exit-"
Lori dragged herself into the room after the two carriers disappeared down the empty hall. She was cut in half by the turrets, upper body intact despite her left arm and chest being grotesquely pierced. The eldest sister left a smearing trail of blood behind her, screaming away, reaching well past her rage limit. The creature in her place was roaring with all its vocal strength, clawing on the ground as she tried to return to the fight. "LINCOLN!"
The stone-cold brother redirected the rifle at hand and jammed the barrel end right to Lori's face and pulled the trigger. The bullets ravaged through her face, ripping away at her flesh to reveal the skull underneath, and Luna gagged visibly at the sight of it. What was left of Lori's body flipped right on its back, and the movement had stopped. Lincoln signaled to the exit, calling out to Luna and the artificial human wearing his own skin. "FALL BACK!"
"LINCOLN, DO YOU MEAN WE'RE RETREATING?!"
He didn't answer, but their footsteps clamped out on the hall, echoing away. Leven was checking over his shoulder, watching their six.
"LINC-!"
"Do not be alarmed, my blood kin!" Linka had taken over the intercom again, sending out the critical facts that would relieve them of being in the dangerous, booby-trapped place of death. "I've managed to duplicate all files of the Network and stored them!"
"Who-?!" Lynn came rushing back for her siblings, stopping short some feet before Lincoln. "Are we taking him too?"
"I... Uhhh..." Luna would have not been onboard of the second clone throwing in if she hadn't witnessed him defying his own master, so she was automatically neutral on it, just as Lynn was.
However, Lincoln had some distrust in that department, seeing only a younger version of him, with all the long, cold and dark traits for the programming set into the clone's system. Another actual Lincoln, an ex-Freight by default, and miraculously one not brainwashed by their new enemies, and by what he could also tell for the female Linka, she might not have been either. It seemed so, but maybe that was the ploy; maybe they were to put up that act. Know that, he didn't, but a reason to suspect it was key. And thinking like a master tactician, it made sense that he wound up considering Linka and Leven to be a duo of infiltrators. Whatever was to be, he'd make sure to be involved when they brought the clones back.
"Yes, we are," Lincoln confirmed to the zoomer. "We can use the Network's toys against them."
"So you put your petty anger when the girl beat you aside?" Lynn wondered, but let it go when Lincoln made a puffed-up face of discontent at her. "Sorry."
"We'll be coming right back and more prepared, I promise you that," the brother vowed, feeling all them more naked without the battle armor he had arrived in. "And we'll need plenty of guns and explosives!"
Luna heard a faint breathing and the wheezing voice it belonged to far back. It came out, "Lincoln... Lincoln, I will... K-kill-" It was of Lori's own, still alive even after Lincoln had shredded her face point blank. Family matters had only just begun.
"They searched all of us! Our exit strat's off the board!" Lynn formed fists and cursed the gods high above them. "Fuck me, man!"
"We'll figure that out later!" Lincoln pushed Lynn after turning her around. "Let's go!"
Linka awaited the team topside while she tended to the twins, both of whom were just in the midst of waking up. Lana rubbed the side of her head, it aching enough that she groaned a hard and heavy cry. "What hit me?"
"I did," Linka revealed with a grin, flexing her punching arm. "If it's any consolation, I held back-"
One swoosh later, Lana pinned down the clone with the base of her neck. "Lola! Lola, wake up! I've got the clone Lincoln warned us about!"
"Huh?" Lola sat upright, opening her eyes. "Wait, where are we?"
Linka tapped over Lana's hands. "Y-you can let go, I'm not on team Lisa!"
"Liar!"
Lynn came climbing out of the hatch, looking back down to help Luna while noticing the twins were finally awake. "Hey, let her go, Lana! She's the one who freed us, and she's-"
Lincoln shoved a fist with medium force to Lynn's chest once he got out, pushing her back. "We can't be sure of that officially. We know nothing about them."
"Them?" Lola repeated as Lana loosened her grip on Linka and pulled herself back without helping her.
Leven climbed out of the pit, and took a glance around the area he was in. The vast treelines, the dirt ground, and the green leaves made the scenery of a peaceful sight worth taking in with his senses. He eyed and sniffed at it for all it was worth. No orders being barked. No blood being spilled, and more importantly, no deluded maggot around trying to accomplish their goals through deadly means that meant the harming of others. And that, Leven got too much from the Lincoln Loud memories of his time with the Freights. Leven, who had chosen to stay long enough to find an opportunity to get the hell out when it presented itself, and not in the way it would pit him and Linka against the entire Black Network faction by themselves. They needed their saviors to give them the hand they needed to stage their own defection, and it went just as planned.
"Oh, my God, is that-?!" Lana squeaked.
"Two Lincoln clones running around?!" Lola finished.
"No time for that! We need a ride, and fast- No telling how long they'll take to retreat!" Lincoln was itching to conclude the tiny war he and Lori were still participating in. Him versus the Freights again, a secondary fight concealed underneath the fight between the Patriots and the Black Network. "Damn it, how?! How did we fuck up-?" And then Lincoln found reason to pin the blame on the clones. "I don't properly understand why you let the others get the drop on us when you could have helped us if you were planning to get out like that."
Linka waved her hands up, shaking them to convey innocence. "Hey, I needed Leven here to be on my side when we turned the tables. Shepherd saw fit to keep him out of the fight, and he made all the difference as you saw!"
"Yeah, I see that," Lynn thought. "That one surprised us all, I'm sure."
"Did we seriously miss that much?!" Lana pouted.
"Dudes, let's not squabble over this!" Luna gave the girl clone a friendly shoulder pat, joining her side. "Girl saved us, and boy here jumped over, we basically won with our lives intact-"
Lana still hissed from her head injury.
"Mostly..." Luna corrected herself.
"Hey, are you okay?" Lola rubbed on Lana's pain and kissed the boo-boo.
"We can check-up on each other later," Lincoln growled. "First thing is first. Someone, contact Elmont and request for a speedy exit! We'd be able to make it back before the Network can beat us to the punchline!"
"Hold on..." Linka closed her eyes, and then started bleeding from her nose yet again. She worked hard to access a specific infrastructure within the cyber sea. "Patriots... Patriot Division, was it? Yeah, I'm so gonna read this fic in my own time!"
"What is she doing?" Luna wondered with an eyebrow raised.
"Don't look at me, I haven't a clue!" Lynn shot out when the rocker looked to her for an answer. "She's Lincoln's clone, not mine!"
"Leave me out of this, damn it."
Before the three Loud siblings could bicker more, their exit window had come in the form of multiple portals, all opening up around them, set in a circular pattern. The Louds drew clear confusion and eyed Linka, trying to theorize what she had just done. "What? I sent this Elmont guy a text message to open some portals. Of course, I supplied the exact coordinates and redirected them right to our specific location! Now, aren't I the best clone?!"
No one batted an eye, only moving to enter through their own designated portals, quickly leaving the woods around them. Lincoln was the only one to truly have a desire to return and bomb the living hell out of the underground facility. Meanwhile, the four women had taken more than enough of a bite to chew that it was decided they didn't want to go back into the war zone right away. Those beasts that were Lori and three undead Freights, the now-defected pair of clones, all those guards, maybe mercenaries Lisa had hired, and the current leader of the base, the one and only James Shepherd, now a pheno. All of that against six Louds, of a dysfunctional, broken family. The victor had been clear the moment the Patriots had arrived to decimate the Network.
"Anyone? Oh, come on, this isn't gonna help me get a job at Baskin Robins!" Linka sulked. "I'm gonna need you as references!" Regardless of her mental state, Linka waltzed through her one personal portal, entering the Patriot Division base with her new crew.
Later
Linka, sitting in the middle, broke the handcuffs and made Samantha Sharp quite uncomfortable, taking a piece of it and running it across her throat to suggest suicide. At least that's what the red-skinned blonde pheno had interpreted it as, and leaned back away from the strange girl of white hair. "Can you not?"
Linka let go of the broken cuff and threw a kiss Sam's way. "What's wrong, honey bunny? Not enough blood?"
"Oh, God," Sam went, turning her face away from Linka. "It's never ending."
Leven, on the other end of the table, had set his hands up and folded them while awaiting for an update. This place, another base of the so-called Patriot Division, had actually welcomed them, amidst the strange looks of the skinnies stuck on the computer monitors who stared at him and little Linka with various kinds of looks. Maybe they were all thinking how compromising it was, when the clones, weapons created to be used against the Patriot Division, were here and walking around. And Leven didn't blame them for having those thoughts, for experiencing that layer of fear. But for sure, he knew which side he was on, and nothing would change that.
The others, that was Lincoln and the four sisters- those four whom Leven burning into his brain- had put them there, told them to stay there while they talked to Alexander Elmont, the Division's leader of long wavy brown hair and baby blue eyes. Unlike with Sam's case, Elmont was not giving anyone lip for bringing the two along, but congratulating them on their win. Still, he needed to keep an eye out on the clones, drawing concern over the fact that these crawled from the same genepool as Lincoln Loud, the most dangerous person to be cloned, out of all Louds around.
"No, just me, cutie! Say, how old are you?" Linka was captivated by how hot Sam was. "If I rape you, it's not pedophilia if you're legal, right?"
Sam ignored the clone.
"How about a date first?"
Just then, Elmont came in solo, eyes locked onto the clones. He seated himself opposite of the three, and remained silent for a long pair of seconds. He then took out his sidearm and fires once up inyo the air before setting it down on the table. Sam jumped, reacting in fear from the gunshot that echoed in her ears. Linka and Leven only blinked at the thunder, however. "Gun is loaded," he told them, pulling his hand back. "What now?"
The test was obvious, and Leven played the game by not playing, keeping his hands out of reach from the gun. Linka proved to have different thoughts, however. "I know what this means!"
Sam gasped and tried to make a break for it, but she had forgotten that she was stuck to the table. "Wait, why did you-?!"
Linka waved the gun on Elmont and Sam, with Elmont not making a move at all. "You've got the gun, girl. Now what?"
"Supply me a machine gun and let us go back to the Network! I will not stand being someone's war toy, and more importantly, to be denied those tasty, tasty sprinkled donuts the guards all took before I could grab one! It's not faaaaaaair!"
Leven took the gun away and unloaded the mag. "We've got a mission we have to see through to the end, sir. Arrest us, lock us up, or even kill us dead when this is all over, but-" Leven snapped off his own handcuffs and got up, moving to the door. "I want to make sure I see Lori Loud and the Network powers crumble before you think of taking me out."
Elmont followed the clone's movements, feeling in touch with that conviction he displayed. Not a threat on the surface, but still.
But still...
"Hey, I know we didn't get into the interrogating but..." Linka's nose bled again, and she wiped it off with her left arm. "There, all files of the Black Network have been sent to your email. The T-L-D-R thing here is that the Network has a contingency in the form of Kapacity Korp. You know what that is, right? Good old McMahon bought them out and basically gave all properties to Lisa. So, Kapacity Korp is just Vial Corp Mark II, and I advise on raiding them all. You'll find the last of Vial's missing staff there."
"You..." Elmont was looking over his phone, taking a peak at everything Linka had sent. "Did you just-?"
"Oh, right, I neglected to tell you guys that I have a computer in my brain!" She pointed to her head and then flicked at it. "Oh, and Lisa's got a private estate in North California. Very high-end place. Private guard a, her own zip code, beautiful house. Address is there for your reading!"
"This is virtually amazing!" Elmont cleared his throat. "Er... I mean, I am indeed grateful for... All of this, but I have to ensure you remain-"
"No problem, I'm staying voluntarily! Otherwise, it's a hunt on all of us clones, right? I am not gonna be anyone's fugitive or wanted war device, you know?" Linka scampered away, meeting up with Leven just outside on the hall. "Big brother-"
"Wait-" Elmont processed what she had just said. "What did you mean-?"
Sam was left alone, horribly confused and spooked by what hat just happened, all of which she did not fully understand. "What?"
"I'm not your brother," Leven coldly retorted. "We aren't real humans, A."
Linka poked at Leven. "Well... Lisa gave us life, and-"
"Is that just the two of you?" Elmont demanded. "Are you the only clones in existence?"
"Keep reading the files and fuck off, we're having a sibling moment!" Linka stammered.
"Well?"
Linka sighed. "Five. There are five of us, and the other three ran off awhile back, don't ask me where they are cause I don't know! But I do know they defected, too! And one of them has telekinesis! How didn't I get that?!"
"T-tele..." Elmont exhaled sharply and tucked his phone back in. "Job comes first... Listen, you two... Word is that you joined our side as suggested by the others, and because of this ultimate choice you two have made, I have seen to it, but only just so barely, that I can offer a place for you here should you help us. You two, the head duo of your own team... This team to be exact-"
Lyle Jefferson, Lindsey Sweetwater and Caroline Pingrey stepped out of one of the rooms on the hall, all three of them meeting with Elmont silently.
"Why have one team when I can double it?" He asked. "Clones, meet your team! And also, welcome to the Patriot Division! We have more than enough to cover... But you are all needed to fight alongside the Louds, and this time I will be joining in!"
Act II: Blood Ties, Chapter VII: The Ultimate Choice