HEYA! NerdRyuu here with the third chapter of The Last Loud!
I recently started working and job requires me to be far from any mean to write, so I had very few opportunities to actually write, but when I have the time, I do!
I'm having a blast writing this Fallout inspired Post-apocaliptic, distopian future, and because I decided to go with a more mature approach, I have more space to work with, specially with descriptions that it's by far, what I like to write the most!
Oh! This time I'll try to do something new that I saw other authors doing and thought it would be cool: I'm answering your questions! Well, this time question because I just received one, but here it is:
ashxryyko27: is The Last Loud Lincoln? (I believe that was the question)
Well, All I'm telling is that I'm keeping The Last Loud's gender a secret ;)
Disclaimer: I do NOT own The Loud House
The Last Loud sat on their newly acquired bike at the rim of a canyum, drinking a sip of water. They observed the magnificent wonder created not by nature, but by the unnatural earthquakes that frequently made the wasteland even worse to live in.
On the other side of the canyun they could see the ruins of some buildings, scavenging those would be good, but crossing the canyun was the problem, they would have to pass on it this time.
They had crossed the border. The Last Loud sighed. The only time they had been so far from home was the time they had been on Scotland. How things change. They put their helmet down and restarted the bike's engine, resuming their travel.
I didn't wanted to see my family so down. I started my career as a comedian to make my siblings laugh, but these weeks the comedy levels were way below the healthy average on a family so big. With our new life style, laughing isn't exactly priority, but few and far between we would find a breach on all the bleakness and would have fun and laugh.
Like last night, where Luna played her guitar for us, while we danced and partied. It was very nice, It felt like the times we ranged out before day zero.
I have to make sure that moments like yesterday won't be the exception. I don't want to survive. I want to live.
I went to Lori to ask her if we could make a game night, I had saved some boardgames before going into the bunker, Lincoln also had saved his gaming console, having some fun wouldn't hurt.
"Please Lori! A game night will be fun!" I pleaded. Lori sighed with a scowl.
"Luan, I'm trying to make us survive! Go back to work, I'm occupied." I just sighed and left her room.
As I walked back to my room, I crossed Lincoln, who was on cleaning duty as usual.
"Hey Luan, why are you making that face?" He asked, I stopped and looked at him.
"It's nothing Lincoln... I just... Asked Lori if we could do a games night, of course she refused, I'm going back to the radio." While Lincoln was on cleaning duty, my work here in the bunker was on the radio post, everyday I would seat and try to find any signal and sending SOS. We didn't chose our works, Lori did, she was the one who chose, she was on the management, Leni was on babysitting with Lily, Luna was on storage, Lucy and Lola were on the greenhouse, Lynn was on the monitors as security guards, Lana was at maintenance and Lisa was on her lab, with her researches.
It was like working, we had a lunch break and most of us stopped at seven pm.
"Oh" Lincoln said. "I am free after my shift, do you wanna play with me?" Lincoln asked with his gentle smile, couldn't stop myself from smiling.
"Yeah! It would be great! Oh, I'm going to invite Luna! We can play boardgames at our room!"
"Wait, Luna?" Lincoln asked surprised.
"Yeah, Luna, is there a problem?" Lincoln hesitate a little before shaking his head.
"No... None at all..."
That night, we three played Monipoly and Clue for hours, I was right, everyone was happy and smiling. Well, almost.
I noticed how Lincoln and Luna were so... Awkward around each other. They didn't talk to much, and even avoided eye contact. That's so strange, they always have been so close, but they're acting like they're... Oh my god...
Finally The Last Loud arrived at the Solana Generating Station, and just at the nick of time, as the fuel of the bike was almost totally gone, just a few miles more and they would be empty. They got off the bike and looked at the entrance of the power plant.
If there's one plece they would find a functional solar panel was there. The main building was in ruins, the front door was wide open, like a portal to a dimension of darkness. The Last Loud grabbed their flashlight from their bag and held it in one hand and the other they grabbed their handgun.
It wasn't raider that the Last Loud was concerned, but what else lurked in the shadows of the abandoned ruins.
Steadily, they entered the building and lighted the flashlight.
Even with the filter over their mouth, they could smell the mold, they couldn't even imagine how it would smell without it. The good part was that they were used to the smell of old abandoned and moldy places.
They walked through corridors and meeting rooms, in search for a solar panel that they could use. But found nothing useful, just some old papers, some office supplies and some scrapped electronic junks... Yeah, maybe that could be useful.
They were putting the electronic junk inside their bag when a sound caught their attention. Instinctively, they pulled up their gun and flashlight. It sounded like it came from the end of the corridor.
It might sound stupid going in the direction of the ominous sound, like a pourly written character in a 80s horror movie, but they had a good reason to do that. It was way better if you catch the danger off guard than it catch you off guard. They knew very well that sometimes, the most careful route is facing the lion head on.
They walked slowly to the direction of the sound, very careful to not make any sound. As they came closer, they could hear something, very low, it sounded like... like something eating.
As they turned the corner they saw it.
With the size of a hunting hound, it was eating the rotten remains of a what once was a man. It had alongated arms and legs, a long and worm looking tail much like a rat, It held a chunk of flesh with their small four fingered hand, like a raccoon holding their meal. It had a long and narrow snout, similar to a opossum's a very red nose that twitched side to side. It had leaf shaped ears also similar to a opossum. The eyes were simultaneously soulless and feral, with totally red iris. It had a very long and pointy set of teeth and moved up and down as the thing munched on their feast. And buck teeth, like a beaver that didn't had nan log of wood for too much time.
It was covered in grayish white hair, also like an opossum.
The thing winced from the sudden light and growled at The Last Loud, pouncing on them with a snarl. The Last Loud acted fast and fired their gun, the bullet penetrated the things side of the neck, the thing didn't reacted too much to the injury, it just bit down on The Last Loud arm armor.
Thankfully, the armor was sturdy and the fangs of the thing didn't reached their flesh. But with the momentum of the pounce, The Last Loud fell backwards on their back as the thing gnawed on the armor, trying to penetrate the armor. The Last Loud acted fast and puswd the fact they were at arms reach of the beast and pointed the gun, still on their hand directly at the thing's head and pulled the trigger.
The thing immediately stopped bitting down on their arm as their blood and brain matter spluttered from the hole on the other side of it's head and on the wall.
The Last Loud threw the body aside and got back up, looking down to the thing. It was a mutated beast. Fairly common, and very difficult to identify what it was supposed to be. This thing looked like a rat or a opossum... Whatever The Last Loud decided to name it "Ratopossum".
"Tsk... I had to waste two bullets on this thing... I should have went with my bat..." The Last Loud reached back and touched the baseball bat, slowly caressing the red and white rag tied to the tip. "It has been a reliable instrument for so long."
They walked past the Ratopossum and grabbed their flashlight from the ground and continued to explore the abandoned building, untill they found a huge metal sliding door. It looked like the sliding door of a warehouse. Probably it let to the back side of the Power plant property, where the hundreds, if not thousands of solar panels gathered The sun's UV light to convert into energy.
They opened the old metal door and almost got by the bright light of the day, they were right, upon them, thousands of solar panels were finely aligned, one after the other. Some were destroyed, corroted by time and weather, others were, surprisingly, fairly intact.
Oh yeah, they found the gold mine.
N/A: And here we are, another chapter concluded! I really liked writing this, especially the Ratopossum's description, that as I stated before, it's my favorite part of writing something.
The Ratopossum was inspired, oddly enough, not by Fallout, but by Skyrim, with the game's giant rats enemy. And the fight between The Last Loud, although short, was the first time I made a fight that was more gruesome, with a mind-blowing ending... get it?
Talking about get it, As a non native english speaker, writing Luan is quite difficult for me, because of her puns, I try to keep them to a minimum, and seeing that the main thing about Luan is her puns and jokes, I tend to avoid writing her at all, not because I dislike her, but it's because I can't write puns and jokes as well as a native english speaker, go back to my other fics, and see if you can found a Luan pun on them. There is some, but it's quite few and far between. I dread the moments where I need to write her, but what can I do? She is one of the main characters of the show.
If you liked, or have a question for me, please, leave a comment, I'll try to respond everyone on the next chapter! Your comment helps me a lot, giving me feedback on things, critics are always welcome!
Although I'm not always online, due by fore mentioned schedule, I'm open to DMs, I'll try to respond as soon as I can, so if you want to ask me something privately, go ahead!
Well, I think this wraps all! I'll try to publish next chapter as soon as I can, untill then, Peace.