Glimpses of the Future, Chapter VIII

A beautiful child, as normal as any other child, sits lonesome in front of a Samsung flatscreen in the living room in comfort, and a nice shaggy carpet keeps the hard wood from making it a nasty experience on her butt. This child is a wee girl who had her great-grandmother's hair color of dark brown curly while both her grandmother and mother had lived their lives with straightened black hair that never went any direction but down. What was more, this lovely child had no features that was passed from either her birth parents, and should you catch them walking down the street, you would clearly see they all looked nothing alike.

But neither parents are part of her life, leaving her in the hands of an odd girl who had become to understand what is and what could not be. An odd girl who did not know the merits of being a parent. In fact, she knew jack shit about being a parent, but was the reliably certified expert on being a sibling, and that is the role she played. Plays now.

Odd Girl walks in with a plain old see-through tee and short-shorts that covered almost no part of her thick legs, that she probably should not be wearing now, as to avoid over-sexualization of herself to anyone who would even fantasize about her. Oh yes, technically Odd Girl is a minor and therefore... Take ya dingaling out and touch yourself, I know you've imagined something, you horny bastard, you. Heh.

Odd Girl has a platter of waffles in one hand and a warm glass of milk in the other, treating Beautiful Girl to a warm breakfast on this fine day. But it is not a fine day to them both, so Odd Girl placed herself to distract herself by making Beautiful Girl have a good day. Might as well have. "I see you're up early to catch the cartoons," she humbly tells Beautiful Girl with glee in her voice. "I've made you this!"

"Yay, I love waffles!" Beautiful Girl goes, waving her hands high in the air. Did I mention Beautiful Girl was eight years old, nearing a full nine soon? Yet, her actions continued to prove she had a mindset of a four-year-old. Understandable, the poor girl had endured loneliness for some years that she might as well have been a Loud child.

That was a joke in very poor taste, but an inside joke that makes Odd Girl laugh externally. Odd Girl was obnoxious that way, but she means well. Most of the time. "Are you up for a day out to an amusement park? We've got the whole day to ourselves, I promise I won't leave you here last minute, okay?"

"You promise?" Beautiful Girl wanted to believe Odd Girl's words, but the line had been spoken only to be broken last minute- Odd Girl had other obligations she needed to tend to, nothing optional for her. And if you wondered why Odd Girl could not take Beautiful Girl with her instead of just leaving her alone in this two-story sturdy house, it was mainly because Beautiful Girl was a pheno, and Odd Girl had known too well what the government had decided to do about phenos. Hell, Odd Girl herself was something along the lines of an enhanced being herself, barely able to roam the streets freely thanks to agreeing to being on a leash and carefully watched by her own friends and family she felt she had been betrayed by.

Lissandra Mercer and Bethany Chang were right; Odd Girl could not rely on them, trust their word and sit at their tables when all the guns were under the table and pointed at her. They deemed her more hostile than before, or maybe they cut back on the treatment they've given her before, where they tolerated her and allowed her to have freedom as long as she cooperated with them. Yet she continued to, to this day.

Odd Girl is just close to cutting ties with them, which proves to be the bad choice, for it carries the heavy consequence that will not be ignored or bribed off; they will hunt her and give chase to the ends of the earth if need be. In this world, free-thinking was an essential weapon in the mind of the 'wrong' person in their eyes. Odd Girl's only wish was for things to go back to normal, in reality accounting for the age when they knew she meant no trouble, despite the baggage they knew she dragged, and her very critical lineage that was a card they dangled over her, spoken like an unholy, unwanted sin.

Odd Girl, due to play the role of mother under the radar, raising an unregistered pheno. In hindsight, Grimmtown could grant the pair asylum- or at least Beautiful Girl, which was easier than the both of them while the world knew not of her existence. Fuck, that girl had it so easy that Odd Girl could be jealous. No, too late for that.

Right, Odd Girl is just about to cross her heart and hope to die in the name of fun. And there is a good chance that Odd Girl could lose herself in the day and have all the fun she had been due. Odd Girl smiles and winks, giggling away across from the abandoned girl. "Ya darn tootin'!" which meant yes, but Beautiful Girl didn't understand.

As luck would have it, the television decides to act faulty, channel switching to the mediocre ABC channel, airing its early morning news. Now, Odd Girl had not bothered to follow current events, uninterested in politics and big-word issues that eluded her lack of intelligence, but it was what the news currently covered that grabbed her attention. "-late last night without incident, according to police reports. The long-existing terrorist bunch are currently held in an undisclosed location for extra safety measures. As to why the Freights have decided to turn themselves in after so many years of their non-stop acts of violence and terror on the very streets of-"

Odd Girl saw an aerial point of view showing the old Freight hideout, followed by heavy police and FBI presence blocking off the area. They- they were alive...?!

"Where's my Looney Tunes?" Beautiful Girl whined childishly. "Turn it baaaaack!"

"-the victims can now find solace in the fact that the Freights will now be tried in the Supreme Court-"

N-no... They don't need a fair and just trial... They- They... Odd Girl grits her teeth in seething anger. It should have gone differently back then, where Lincoln Loud finished the job, but obviously the written had been erased. No coma. No Clyde McBride. No Lily or a sacrificial play to take out stepsister Lori Loud. "Tch..."

Linka saw it as a personal insult to her and Lincoln alike, and before the news had wrapped up covering this development, she had made up her mind; the hunt was on.

And no better way to go rogue by obtaining proper closure.