I don't own any of this all of the Nicktoons belongs to Nickelodeon.
Lincoln Loud had no idea on what had happened to him? One moment; he had been in his room putting on that wrist watch before going over to play some video games, then the next thing he knew was that he had woken up in a desolate alleyway. He couldn't remember on how he got here? All he could really remember was a horrible, glitchy sound that filled his ears before everything went black for him.
Had he gotten kidnapped and then got dumped in this alley? Or had one of Lisa's experiments exploded and launched him here? Who knows for he's utterly clueless. The only thing that he did know was just how on Earth was he going to get back home? His family must be worried sick and he just hated to have them worry, especially if it's over him.
Maybe he can get his bearings outside of this alley, where hopefully he's in a familiar part of town as it will be easier to get back home if he knew where he was. As he walked through the alley unfamiliar smells hit his nose and the sounds of dogs barking along with the blares of car horns are heard giving him an uneasy vibe for it smelled and sounded like a city. But it couldn't be, he couldn't have been dumped all the way over to Great Lake City.
Stepping out of the alley, Lincoln sees that he at least wasn't in Great Lake City, but rather he's in a very unfamiliar city. Lincoln couldn't see any familiar landmarks that would pin point him in Great Lake City.
"This is so not good." He told himself for how in the world is he supposed to get home? He had somehow got brought into a unfamiliar city where everything looked so different than how he's used to seeing the world, it almost looked like a completely different art style. What was he to do?
Alright. Now's not the time to panic. Panicking has never done anything good for anyone, he'll just have to have a good clear mind and then he can think of a way to get himself out of this mess that he suddenly found himself in.
"Okay. What's the first thing that I should do? Come on Lincoln think." He thought long and hard, until at last he came up with going over to the police station and tell them that he's lost from home. Hopefully the police can help get himself home by giving him either a bus or plane ticket, which he also hoped that home wasn't too far away from wherever he is.
It's the best plan that he can come up with and the most logical as the police are supposed to be helpful during these kinds of situations. Now all he had to do is find the police station, which given the size of this city, plus with him being so unfamiliar with it, it's going to be rather difficult, but hey that's a simple fix for all he needed to do is to simply ask for some directions. Now that's settled, all he had to do is just find a good samaritan who will gladly give him directions and he'll be good.
Some ice cream truck music then enters his ears that grew steadily louder as a ice cream truck with a pink popsicle with the large, bubbled words "JOLLY OLLY", written across it, drove passed Lincoln.
He never heard of that name before and Lincoln Loud knew his ice cream trucks.
The truck slowly pulls itself up to a curve, where a group of children are eagerly waiting to buy some delicious ice cream. The side hatch opens and a man began to collect the kids money, where he then gives out some ice cream in return. A bit with a grumpy look on him.
Walking up to the truck for perhaps he can give Lincoln some directions to the police station, Lincoln looked up at him expectedly, but he wasn't looking at him for the moment, so Lincoln let's out a small cough before addressing the ice cream man. "Excuse me?"
Turning to look at him, the ice cream man's eyes glares down at him. "What do you want kid? A Fudge Nutty Bar?"
The glare Lincoln receive intimidated him a bit for he never received a look like that before, not even from Mr. Grouse. "Uh, no. I just want some directions to the police station."
The ice cream man's glare harden as if Lincoln had just insulted him. "What do I look like? A map?! If you aren't going to buy any ice cream then SCRAM!" Slamming the hatch down hard, the truck then moves off leaving behind a cloud of carbon dioxide that Lincoln coughed out as he waved his hand around to dissipate the cloud until it finally cleared up. "Well that guy was very pleasant."
Maybe the next person will be a lot more nicer than that guy. He soon walked down several city blocks, taking in the sites as he went on his search for someone to help him out. Many people pass by him not giving him any notice as they went about their daily city life, Lincoln tried to get some of their attention, but it seemed like that someone is always talking on a mobile phone on each time he tried. It's a bit frustrating for him, but yet he also took notice that the phones that they held were the large ones that people used to talk to back in the 90's, which is very strange for why were people in this city using such outdated phones?
In fact; while passing by some store front windows as well as looking up at some billboards, Lincoln took in on the amount of stuff that had been outdated in his lifetime. What on earth was going on? Was the city having a 90's day or something? If he didn't know any better than he could swear that he had slipped back in time. But that can't be possible, not unless Lisa had made another time machine and accidentally sent him into the 90's. No, there's more to this than that, he didn't know how? But he just felt it in his gut.
He then soon comes across something that he couldn't believe as well as contradicting his earlier thought of crossing through time. As right across the street from him is a building with a large cutout of a man wearing a king's crown, holding money that's situated above a sign that read "Big Bob's Beepers!"
Beepers. Those outdated devises that got replaced by cell phones. They were here in this city and are selling enough to have a store open like a modern smart phone store, that only meant one thing. He did somehow travel to not only another place, but also in another time period.
Just great, of course this would only happen to him. All he wanted is to have a nice relaxing afternoon playing video games in his room and now he's stuck in another time period. Now unless the police has a handy time machine on them, he's in very big trouble here. "Calm down Lincoln. Just keep trying to find that police station and hope that this is all somehow a dream."
And that's exactly what he did as he continues to walk his way through the city, taking in the sites of not only the buildings, but also of a peculiar man wearing a cape across the street, running down the other way while screaming, "MONKEY MAN!" At the top of his lungs.
He didn't know what that was all about and he felt that it was probably best not to stop and ask the guy. Suddenly Lincoln felt a large hand grip his arm, letting out a surprise yelp as he got pulled into another alleyway, where he felt himself get picked up by the back of the collar and thrown against a wall.
Sitting down on the ground, Lincoln looked up to his grabber and identified him as a muscular boy wearing a green shirt with a cobra on it, while next to his left is a more skinnier boy wearing a blue shirt. They both looked down at him with very nasty grins, no doubt that these two are the bully types and that they have just picked Lincoln as their next target to torment.
"Well, well, well. Look what we got here Edmund. A old man disguised as a wimpy fourth grader." Beside the muscular boy the other boy, who Lincoln caught his name as Edmund laughed. "Oh I get it because of the white hair. Heh. Good one Wolfgang."
"Yeah, I know right." He beamed in pride of himself before remembering the white hair boy in front of him. Clamping a fist against a open palm, Lincoln couldn't help himself as he began to shake while a small, nervous smile slowly formed on his face. He wondered if he could perhaps talk his way out of this fine mess.
"Hi, um, fellas. I don't suppose that you can just let me leave here is there?" The smile on Wolfgang's face grew in amusement, it's as if Lincoln had just told him a very funny joke.
"Nice try fourth grader, but the only way out of here is by giving me your lunch money." Pounding his fist again, it's very clear that there's no negotiating with this guy, but at least Lincoln could correct him on one thing.
"I'm actually not a forth grader."
Wolfgang paused a bit, that caught him by surprise. "Your not?"
"I'm actually in fifth grade." He nervously corrected.
"Oh. If your a fifth grader than I guess we can let you go, huh, Wolfgang." Edmund exclaimed with a shrug, only to get a hard punch on the shoulder from the larger boy.
"No! We're not going to let him go!" He snapped.
"But Wolfgang. I thought we don't go after fifth graders?" Edmund pointed out as that's what Wolfgang always said.
"Yeah, well." He at first hesitated before regaining composure. "He's still scrawny, so this is an exception."
"It is?" He question with a finger placed on the tip of his chin.
"Yes! Now c'mon! We gotta get down to business!" Turning back to Lincoln, he's stunned to find that he was no longer there. "Hey! Where did he go?"
Together the two looked around the alley for any sign of that white hair kid. Eventually it was Edmund who spotted him exiting out through the other end of the alleyway. "Look there he goes."
By the time Wolfgang turned his head, all he saw is Lincoln's shoe disappear from around the corner. He's too far away to chase down, the only thing that he could do was slap himself on the forehead. "D'oh! Now look what happened! You got me so distracted that he got away!"
"So what do we do now?" Edmund shrugged.
"I don't know, maybe throw rocks at a dumpster." Wolfgang shrugged back for he honestly didn't know on what to do at the moment? Throwing rocks at some random dumpster is at least something to do to kill some time.
After running for what he can guess is about six city blocks. Lincoln finally slows himself down to a complete stop, as he catches his breath he looks back and is very relieved to see that they weren't chasing after him, looks like he doesn't have to worry about them beating him up since he didn't even have any money on him at the moment. As a quick mental note, Lincoln told himself not to encounter any of those guys again in the future as he quite likes to have his underwear inside his pants.
Anyway now that he lost them, he can now get back to his current mission of finding that police station. That was until the sound of a bat hitting a baseball got him distracted from his goal. Looking up to the sky, Lincoln only had a second to see the said baseball flying at his face before everything went black after an explosion of colorful stars filled his vision.
He didn't know how long he was out, but it probably was only a couple of seconds when he began to come to with the muttering of voices entering his ears and blurry figures around his vision. Suddenly a fresh sting struck his cheek as someone had slapped him hard enough to get him fully up from his daze. "Ow! What the?"
"See he's fine. Now come on, we got a game to play." A girl with a unibrow and who had on a pink bow on her head said with great impatience for having the game interrupted right when her team was winning.
Meanwhile Lincoln sat himself up and gently touched the bump on his head with a bit of a wince. "Ow. Oh man. What hit me?"
"Sorry. That was me. Sometimes when I make a hit, the ball hits someone." A boy said as he reached a hand out to Lincoln who gladly took it. Getting pulled back up to his feet, Lincoln took immediate notice of the peculiar shape of the boy's head, could it be his imagination or was his head shaped like a football.
"No problem. I suppose it could happen to anyone, so uh, who are you?" Lincoln asked while still rubbing his head.
"I'm Arnold and you are?"
"Lincoln."
Reaching for his hand, Arnold slowly shook it. "Nice to meet you Lincoln." Besides him a kid with hair like Marge Simpson and a red shirt with the number 33 stitched on it, gave Lincoln a close inspection. "Hmmm, I never seen you around here before."
"Well you can say that I'm new here, very new." Lincoln replied as he wasn't exactly lying on that statement.
"Cool. By the way the name's Gerald." He introduced himself.
"Nice name." Lincoln goes to shake his hand, only to have Gerald stop him as he instead greeted him with a fist pump on his knuckles. Behind Gerald three other boys studied Lincoln, particularly his white hair which a boy who's a tad husky couldn't resist, but start teasing him over it. "Oh look! It's a grandpa! What are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be sleeping on a chair!"
Besides him the two other boys laughed while pointing at Lincoln. "He should be in a retirement home." The one in a green hat and large nose joked.
"Willikers. He can be on one of those oatmeal boxes." A tall boy with a pointy nose added before they all went into a large fit of laughter. Arnold and Gerald had blank looks as they stare at the three for just leave it to Harold, Sid, and Stinky to have a jab at the new guy.
Turning back to Lincoln, Arnold was the one to speak up on their behalf. "Don't mind them. They're really are good guys, they just really like to tease from time to time."
"No biggie." Lincoln waved off. "I got a very thick skin. Trust me. It takes more than teasing to get to me." Really after dealing with Chandler and the occasional sibling teasing moments, Lincoln is well immune to teasing at this point. The best thing to do when it comes to teasing was to simply ignore it as eventually they're going to tire themselves out.
So as the three continue to laugh at their jokes about his hair, Lincoln turned to Arnold for maybe he can help him with his problem as he's a lot more nicer than that ice cream man. "So Arnold. Can I ask you something?"
"Sure, what is it?"
"Do you know where the police station is?"
This question caused Gerald to arch his eyebrows for that's something a kid rarely asked. "What do you want the police for?"
"Let's just say that I need help with finding a location." Lincoln answered carefully, he couldn't say the whole truth for really if he told them that he was apparently a kid from the far future, who had somehow got dumped here randomly. Honestly they would probably think that he was nuts, so it's best not to go into complete detail on his situation.
"Then why not go to the library to look at a map?" Gerald pointed out.
"I would, but the police will definitely help me with this problem." Lincoln replied without any further details.
Both boys felt confused and a bit concern that this guy that they've met needed to go see the police for directions. He must be lost and is looking for the police to help get him back home, it is this case that Arnold gladly gave him a very detailed description on how to find the police station. After finishing up with his very detailed directions, Lincoln gladly thanks him and then took off to finally get himself to the police station.
Arnold and Gerald watched him walk down the street, wondering if they should go with him. The guy needed help and Arnold couldn't help but feel that he should do something that could somehow help out Lincoln's trouble.
"Hey football head! We're playing a ball game or what!?" Helga's voiced called to him as she taps her foot impatiently for the two to get their behinds back to the ball game.
Briefly looking to each other, Arnold and Gerald figured that they could meet up with Lincoln later to see if the police helped him out with his problem, besides it looks like that he can take care of himself. With their decision made, the two quickly went back to the game before Helga got even more impatient.
Since Arnold was the last one to bat, Sid is up next. As he got himself into position, Arnold who's on first base at the moment, looked back to the street Lincoln walked down on, wishing him the best of luck.
It took him several city blocks, but finally. Lincoln has found the police station and to him it's a glorious sight as he stood at the bottom of the stairs. Finally he can have directions back to Royal Woods, now how exactly is he supposed to get back to his own time is a whole another problem that he'll try to figure out later, after getting on the bus straight towards home.
He then goes happily up the stairs and entered the station. The lobby had a white tile floor, gray walls with a wooden half, a bulletin board with wanted posters, a wooden bench, several plants, glass offices where several officers can be seen working, and a single jail cell. In front of Lincoln is the front desk, where a female officer is busy with looking over some paperwork.
"Excuse me mam."
Glancing up from her paperwork at him, the female officer gives him a slight smile with her pen in her hand. "Can I help you young man?"
"Yes, I'm a bit lost and I was wondering if you can help me?"
"Of course. Can you tell me where your trying to get to?" She's ready to help for as a mother, she can easily sympathize with him as she could imagine one of her children being lost in the city, she can practically feel the worry this boy's parents or guardian are feeling right now.
"Royal Woods."
She gives him a look of question, she has never heard of Royal Woods before. "Can you repeat that?"
"I'm looking for a place called Royal Woods."
"Is that a street?" She question while scratching her head a bit.
"No. It's a town in Michigan." Lincoln corrected.
"I've never heard of that town." She looked at plenty of maps before and she never came across a town called Royal Woods on any of those maps.
"You sure?" It couldn't be right, while Royal Woods was no Wisconsin Dells. It's still a fairly good size town that people would know about, especially since the Dairy Land amusement park is located within it's limits.
"I've looked at plenty of maps kid and I never heard of a town called Royal Woods." If she had a map, she can show him herself.
"What about Dairy Land? America's favorite dairy theme amusement park." She had to know of that place.
"Certainly not." A dairy theme park? Who would ever think of that? Is this kid playing a joke on her? And if so, it wasn't funny as you never pull joke cases as it's a very big waste of time, especially when there are more serious cases the police needed to attend to. The kid needed to be told why on what he is doing is very wrong for if he kept doing it, he'll face even bigger trouble.
"Listen. I know that you're young and that during this stage of your growth, you make very rash decisions that gets you into trouble. So here's a piece of advice. It's not really cool to pull jokes on the police. I'll let this go as normally you can get into very large trouble that results with a phone call to your parents. If you don't want that to happen, I suggest that you leave this moment."
"But I'm not-," Lincoln couldn't continue for the officer had given him a very stern look, it wasn't just any look, it was a look his mother would give to him or any of his sisters whenever they did something wrong. Not speaking another word, Lincoln quickly left the lobby.
Shortly after he left, she went back to her paperwork feeling rather good of herself as she's sure that kid isn't going to be pulling any of these jokes anymore.
His town didn't exist! How could this be?
These thoughts repeated themselves multiple times as Lincoln wandered aimlessly through the city. He could barely compute on this for how can anyone in the world be told that their hometown that they spent their whole childhood in simply doesn't exist? It's enough to simply to make someone loose their mind or at the very least mute themselves for the time being.
The whole reveal also made Lincoln think of something else that's even more shocking. He just hadn't been sent back through time. No. He had in fact been teleported into a whole other world. It's utterly the whole brother nightmare all over again and this time he didn't think that this is a dream as this felt all too real.
Now how exactly did this all happened? He had no idea for it's a very large mystery that he in the life of him couldn't crack, not even Ace Savy could crack it. Oh man! This has really given him something to worry about. How was he going to get back home? He was no genius like Lisa who can literally make a machine for interdimensional travel in under an hour, while he can barely make a birdhouse. More worried filled him for was he going to be trapped in this world forever with no way of seeing his friends or family again?
It very well terrified him as there's no way that he can just start a new life in this unfamiliar world. He doesn't have a place to live, no one to look out for him, and perhaps even worse. He has no plans to figure out on what to do. Oh, how completely unfair this was.
Getting himself out from his shocked state of mind, Lincoln found himself standing on the middle of a bridge in a park that overlooks a lake. Stepping over to the stone railing, Lincoln crossed his arms and rests them on it as he looked down at the water below. Watching his wavey reflection with sad eyes, left in his many thoughts of this predicament.
Another reflection soon came up right next to him, looking at it closely Lincoln sees that it's Arnold. Turning to face him, he took notice of the vanilla ice cream that he held in his hand, but now judging by the look on his face. It's very clear that Arnold had noticed the loss on his own face from the shocking reveal. "Everything alright Lincoln?"
"Not really Arnold. The police were unable to help me with my problem." Releasing a sigh, Lincoln's gazed lowers towards Arnold's shoes.
"They couldn't find on what you were looking for?"
"You could say that." Lincoln stated without going into much further detail.
"I'm sorry to hear that. Perhaps I can help." He kindly offers.
"That's very nice of you Arnold, but I'm afraid that there's nothing that you can do to help me with my rather large problem." It's unfortunately true for unless Arnold has a secret device that can bring him back home hiding somewhere. Lincoln very much doubted that he could help him out of this jam.
"You sure? I can figure something out to help you." He's insisted, which Lincoln really appreciates as someone who is willing to help him out with no questions asked. That's definitely a sign of a very good person.
"Sorry, but like I said before. The problem is just simply too large for anyone to figure out." Lincoln sadly stated.
"So there isn't anything that I can do?"
"Well I suppose if you have any recommendations for a place for me to stay in, then that can really help me out." At this Arnold gives a small smile for he does have a place for Lincoln to spend the night at. "You can stay at my house."
"Oh no. I don't want to impose." He just didn't want to barge in for although Arnold is very kind, he didn't know him that well, it seemed a bit rushed to invite a random person you just met to spend the night at your home.
"It's no problem. My place is a boarding house anyways, people are always welcome to bunk in."
"A boarding house." That's a very intriguing place to live in.
"Hmm, mmm. I got a good number of people living there, but I must warn you that there's only one bathroom."
At this Lincoln can't help but let out a small chuckle. "Oh don't worry. I'm used to a single bathroom."
"Does this mean you accept my offer?"
Lincoln shrugged. "I suppose it does."
"Fallow me then." Motioning Lincoln forward, Arnold leads Lincoln away from the park and towards his house.
Looking up at the boarding house. Lincoln has to say that despite it being a bit old, it's an impressive building that does make you feel welcome. "Nice place Arnold."
"Thanks. My grandpa does his best to make it up to code." Arnold said.
"He runs the place?" Lincoln asked.
"He and my grandma actually. This was actuality once owned by grandpa's dad, it's a family home you can say." He informed.
"That's fascinating." If only Clyde was here. He would've loved to hear this, since he is into the history of buildings and other old things such as antiques. But anyways they should really head inside now for he would like to take a look inside of the place.
They walked on up the steps straight to the front door, where suddenly Arnold stopped him and motions him to take a step to the side, after he does so, Arnold opens the door and a great number of animals came running out of the house that would've ran Lincoln over, if he hadn't fallowed Arnold's advice. After the last one left, Arnold allowed himself and Lincoln to enter inside his house.
Walking a couple steps through the front hall, they just pass the stairs when a elderly man walked out from the kitchen with a ham sandwich in his hand. "Hey there shortman! I see that you brought a guest with ya." The elderly man looked to him as he took a bite out of his sandwich, he particularly had his eyes on Lincoln's hair. "Hmm. Never seen white hair on a kid before. What's your name son?"
"Lincoln Loud."
Extending his other hand out, he gives Lincoln a very nice handshake before separating, which Arnold took the chance to speak up. "Hey grandpa. I was wondering if Lincoln can spend the night here?"
"Sure. Now how much are you going to pay?"
"Grandpa." Arnold slightly scolded that earned a laugh from his grandfather. "Oh I'm just yanking ya, shortman. Any friend of Arnold is welcome here just as long that you're not a freeloader. We already got Oscar to fill that void." A sudden noise suddenly comes out from his stomach that Arnold's grandpa quickly held onto. "Now if you excuse me. I gotta get to the office for a very important conference." Rushing away for the nearest bathroom, he leaves the boys to themselves.
"Let's head on up to my room. We can get you settled in before dinner."
"Sounds like a plan." Fallowing Arnold up the stairs, Lincoln soon finds himself in a hallway of doors with four of them having numbers on them. Those must be the boarder's rooms, which means that Arnold's room is one of the other doors. "So which ones your room?"
"Just over here." Walking to the end of the hallway, Arnold stretched up and pulled down a row of stairs. Lincoln certainly wasn't expecting that, he's momentarily stunned as Arnold climbed halfway up them, but then stopped to motion him to fallow him up.
Entering Arnold's room; Lincoln is immediately impressed as Arnold's room is a very cool room with the stereo set-up, an alarm clock with a mini him on top while being powered by a potato, spotlights, and of course what really impressed him is the large skylight that showed the passing clouds. He's so amazed by the room that he couldn't help but let out a whistle. "Nice room."
"Thanks" Going over to a shelve near his bed, Arnold grabs hold of a remote control that with a simple push of a button, a red couch rolled out from the wall, impressing Lincoln even more as he had never seen that before.
"You can sleep here. I got some blankets and a extra pillow in the closet."
Sitting himself down on the couch, Lincoln took a long glance around the room in a bit of jealousy as it made his own room very pathetic in comparison. He holds in his jealousy however as he turned to address Arnold as that's not a way a guest should act, especially to a very kind person like Arnold who invited him here with no hesitation. "You know. I just wanna say thanks for letting me spend the night here. You didn't have to do that."
"I know that I didn't have to, but I wanted to as no kid deserves to be spending the night outside in the city streets. Tomorrow we can start brainstorming ways to fix your problem, but until then make yourself comfortable." With a kind smile, Arnold went over to his closet to take out those blankets and pillow.
Smiling back to him, Lincoln is way beyond grateful. He spent only a day in this world and already he had gained a friend. Sure there's still the issue of finding his way back home that's a very top priority that he needed to figure out, but as for right now he can at least begin to know a bit more of his new friend.