Lincoln's eyes snapped open as he stirred back into consciousness. The change was barely noticeable to his sleep-addled brain, so dark was his room this late into the night. He suffered a brief moment of confusion, unable to parse what, if anything, had nudged him back into wakefulness. Nothing seemed to be amiss. There was a distinct lack of late-night visitors, no Lynn needing to talk about anything that had been weighing on her, no twins burrowing into his blankets, desperate to escape some imagined night terror. Not even a Leni, desperate to have someone confirm that her night gown did not, in fact, make her look fat. Nothing had fallen over, and no alarm had sounded. As far as Lincoln could perceive, his immediate surroundings were exactly as he had left them when he had drifted off to sleep earlier that night.

At this point, willing to chalk things up to a simple quirk of fate, the Loud boy rolled onto his side, pulled his blankets snugly around him, and closed his eyes once more, preparing to resume his rest. However, just as he had made himself comfortable, he felt it.

VRRRRRRRRMMMMM

The house began to rattle, the walls and floors around him vibrating softly, then coming to a stop. But only momentarily, as shortly after, the entire process began again, the Loud's dwelling reverberating in short, but frequent cycles. This sort of thing wasn't too uncommon, in his experience. Old homes had a tendency to settle throughout the day, walls and floorboard creaking and squeaking as their insides adjusted themselves due to all manner of external factors. The Loud House, in particular, was especially old, and thanks to the antics of its inhabitants, worn even beyond its actual age. The strange noises that his home tended to produce all on its own had been a constant companion to Lincoln throughout his childhood, and he was well acquainted with them.

This, was not the house settling. It was a far more unusual phenomenon, one that had been recurring for several nights now, and one which Lincoln already knew the cause of. The question before him was, how did he proceed from here?

It was tempting to simply ignore the disturbance and try his best to go back to sleep. The rest of his family were undoubtedly either doing the same thing, or so deep in their own respective slumbers that they were incapable of noticing what was happening outside. He already knew that nobody would blame him, as he'd already made that choice several times by now.

VRRRRRRRRMMMMM

...And yet, each time he'd made that call, he ended up going to bed fitful and guilt-ridden. His motivations hadn't been entirely selfish. When you were inserting yourself into business that, strictly speaking, was not your own, there were considerations to be made. Chief among them being, whether you had anything to actually offer the person, and whether your help was actually wanted. Lincoln had a knack for getting involved in other people's problems, sometimes by design, and often just because he happened to be around, and he knew from firsthand experience that bumbling into a situation that did not actually warrant your involvement, could, and often did, end up just making things far, far worse. It was these reservations that had left Lincoln at a loss on those previous nights. And no matter how long he'd sat there, staring into the darkness, mulling those questions over in his mind, he'd never been able to come to a satisfactory answer. It had simply been easier to just opt-out, remove himself from the equation entirely. Maybe tonight was the night to try something different.

Lincoln tossed aside his blankets and sat up, feet dangling above the floor. And once more, he posed the question to himself.

"Can I actually make this better, or am I just going to make things worse?"

Thus having spake, he hesitated, one moment blending into the next as he sat there, ruminating, his room gently shuddering around him. Finally, he reached a consensus with himself, and with a gentle push of his palms, he nudged himself forward, and stood.

It simply wasn't in his nature to stand by when other people were in need. Especially when that person was his sister.

Lincoln crept as quietly along the darkened hallway of The Loud House as he could. There wasn't a particularly pressing need, he probably could have dashed right through the hall and nothing would change, so prominent were the movements the house was currently undergoing. Still, he kept that pace. After all, there was no point in needlessly disturbing the rest of his family. So Lincoln kept that pace, finding himself a regular rhythm. The house would begin to rattle, leaving him a little more leeway to quicken his pace, and then return to its natural state of rest, likewise calling for Lincoln to take things more slowly. During those times, all that could be heard were the near-silent padding of his feet against the carpet, his own hushed breathing, and the soft, ever-present beeping provided by the House's newest additions. Which, he supposed, were the prelude to this whole situation.

It wasn't long ago that Lisa had embarked on a new experiment. Something, she insisted, would change the world. This wasn't at all atypical, the young scientist was nothing if not ambitious, and she was always in hot pursuit of something new and revolutionary. That aspect of her was something that Lincoln had always found admirable about his little sister, even if her ambitions seemed, more often than not, to end with consequences that stopped just shy of catastrophic. Even so, her commitment, and dogged refusal to give up, was something to be lauded. And in the event that she avoided immolating or disintegrating herself long enough to gain the wisdom needed to temper her seemingly unlimited intelligence, Lincoln was certain that she would truly change the world. Possibly more than once.

Unusually for this particular instance, however, was that Lisa was strangely tight-lipped about her experiment. While the young girl was generally more than happy to speak at length to anyone who would listen about whatever her current scientific pursuit was, on this occasion she was strangely subdued in this regard. Queries from the rest of the family, likely brought on by this odd change in behavior, were met with generalities, and non-specifics. There was an experiment. It was very important. It was almost certainly safe. Those were, by and large, the most information the family was able to get out of her. That last point, in particular, seemed to warrant further investigation, especially when Lincoln had caught a rare glimpse into Lisa's room, and saw it filled with an ominous green glow. Seconds later, a lead shield slammed into place, blocking his view and a very perturbed scientist pushed him away from her door, warning Lincoln in no uncertain terms that even though there was nothing to be worried about, he should still give her room a wide berth.

The family's concerns had only grown when they awoke one day to find their house not too subtly adorned with a large number of Geiger counters which had most definitely not been there the previous night. Again, Lisa tried to allay their fears. It was just a precaution, she had assured them. Her experiment, she'd explained, had simply developed an unforeseen side effect of producing an "amount" (her words), of background radiation, which she had not anticipated. Nevertheless, she was quite emphatic that it was nothing to worry about. The radiation, such as it was, had already been holding steady for several days by that point, and was nowhere near the level it would be to actively cause harm to living beings. According to her, the Geiger counters were simply a precautionary measure. It was Lisa performing her due diligence so she could ascertain the extent to which the only technically irradiated area encompassed, and so that she would be alerted in the highly unlikely event (again, her words) that the radiation levels rose. She assured her family that the possibility of any side effects arising from the presence of the radiation was so infinitesimally small, that her strict adherence to intellectual honesty was the only thing preventing her from telling her family that the possibility was actually impossible. Her family had, naturally, believed her, putting their trust in Lisa's scientific acumen.

As Lincoln rounded the exterior of the house, gently slipping through the side gate that led to the backyard, he mused that, to be fair, Lisa likely hadn't been wrong. But there was a reason that science distinguished a 0% possibility from even the smallest, fractional increment. And as he entered the backyard, and gazed upward, it seemed like there was no greater proof of that concept, than the very large, and very real side effect sitting before him.

Sitting on the ground, leaning against the rear of the house, was his big sister Luna. Not at all an unusual sight in and of itself, as Lincoln could remember seeing his sister in that very position countless times, strumming on her guitar and singing whatever was in her soul. Sometimes he liked to stand at a distance, watching his sister in her natural element. At other times he'd pull up a seat and provide Luna with an audience, for which she was always grateful. What set this occasion apart from so many similar ones, was that here, Luna was literally leaning against the house. As in, resting herself upon the entire structure.

Even in her sitting position, Luna towered over Lincoln, the rocker's slender frame looming over the backyard, more or less matching the height of the Loud House itself. The pale-haired boy started toward the titanic teen but stopped in his tracks as a shaft of moonlight caught his sister just right. And suddenly, he couldn't help but stand there, and just admire the sight.

Lincoln had always held the opinion that his sisters, the older ones, in particular, were the most beautiful women in the world. And while Luna was hardly the most feminine of the bunch, she never disappointed in that regard. And at her current size, her allure, in that regard, was only magnified. Her long legs had only grown longer. The loveliness inherent in her face, only more prevalent. And while her wardrobe had not survived the..."accident", as they were charitably calling it, forcing her to make do with an outfit hastily sewn together by Leni, mostly made from old blankets of a decidedly unflattering brown color, the way her makeshift clothing clung to her curvaceous frame only served to further highlight her natural attributes. A beautiful woman was beautiful no matter what she wore, and in this moment, Luna was living proof of that.

She sat there with her eyes closed, fingers gently strumming a phantom guitar. She wasn't singing, exactly, as she was seemingly making an effort to keep her mouth shut, but now and again her lips would part, and melodic fragments would spill out, gliding his way on the night breeze. Bits and pieces of a phantom song that, presumably, only existed in her mind. As much as Lincoln wanted to close the distance, he hesitated, not wanting to risk ruining the moment.

Suddenly the tempo changed. Luna's strumming became more frantic, her muted vocals becoming more frequent, and louder as she seemed to be working towards some kind of crescendo. Her foot began tapping upon the ground, rapidly rising in speed, and as it did so the ground beneath Lincoln's feet began to tremble, threatening to topple the boy as it rose in intensity.

Lincoln realized that this was more than likely the reason for their strangely localized earthquakes just as Luna's body lurched upward into a crouched position. Her foot gave one, last, emphatic stomp on the ground, the resulting tremor shaking Lincoln to his very core. But so entranced was he by the giantess, that he scarcely noticed. Then Luna raised her arm straight up, and gave one, last powerful strum of her phantom instrument. The grand finale, he recked, judging from the way she stood perfectly still afterwords. Had this been a real performance, he'd have no doubt that this would have resulted in deafening applause.

Letting out a long exhale, Luna slid back to the ground and leaned against the house once more. Her gargantuan chest rose and fell in a very distracting manner as she desperately tried to replenish the oxygen she'd just spent on that performance. Deciding that this was probably the optimum chance to approach the titaness, particularly now that her feet were finally at rest, and not likely to inadvertently stomp on him, Lincoln crept forward. And once he felt he was within a reasonable distance, he announced himself.

"L-Luna?"

"Basically no chance of side effects." Lisa had insisted. "You're more likely to be struck multiple times by lightning. In the middle of a desert."

"Lucky me," Luna grumbled to herself, as she sank back into a sitting position.

It had been several days since her change, and things hadn't gotten any easier. She had thought the worst part would have been the change itself. Settling down to a nice picnic at the park with Sam, only to find herself bursting out of her clothes, and suddenly standing in the middle of a very public place, with only the tattered remnants of her outfit preserving the tiniest fraction of her modesty. So sudden was the change, that all Luna could do was sit there, dumbfounded, trying to process what had just happened to her. Then the screaming had started, and she'd quickly realized that whatever had happened, she needed to get out of there, fast. Fortunately, what was normally the bane of a young couple without a drivers' license between them, the inability to plan a date too far away from either of their houses actually ended up being a boon in this case. The pair had specifically chosen this park because it was within walking distance from Luna's house, leaving them free to enjoy themselves without being at the mercy of their parents, Lori, or bus schedules. So after experiencing a surprising amount of difficulty in scooping up her flabbergasted girlfriend and hightailing it out of there, Luna was able to quickly able to cover the remaining distance home without too much further incident. Save for a few upended trees and a traffic light that now governed the adjacent street. But getting out of that immediate danger hadn't done much to resolve the matter of her inopportune growth spurt.

Lisa's experiment was clearly the culprit, though the scientist weakly protested to the contrary, it was difficult to argue with the house-sized counterargument that was Luna herself. In hopes of staving off any further such incidents, Lisa had arranged to move her...whatever it was, into her bunker, which she assured her family was just as capable of keeping radiation in, as it was at keeping it out. She had also made a few calls to her government contacts, heading off any sort of military response to reports of the "giant monster" that had been spotted in Royal Woods, and had promised, with more sincerity than Luna had ever heard from the logic-driven girl, that she would find a way to fix this. But that didn't help Luna much in the meantime. She couldn't go anywhere, because people were terrified of her. She couldn't do anything, because her now toy-sized town ,and everything in it, was also now, appropriately, comparatively fragile compared to her. And naturally, she couldn't fit indoors anywhere, which left her without much to do beyond sitting here in the backyard, and hoping that every forthcoming moment would be the one where Lisa ran up and announced that she'd made a breakthrough. Something, for which she was still waiting for.

Even her family seemed reluctant to hang out with her. Which, in all fairness, Luna couldn't exactly blame them for. If the situation had been reversed, she couldn't honestly say she wouldn't be intimidated to be around someone her size. A few of them had tried sitting with her and making small talk on occasion, but the conversations were short, and stunted, which readily killed any enthusiasm she might have gotten from the human contact she so desperately craved. Messages relayed to her via her siblings had informed her that Sam was trying to make time to come visit her, but she was having difficulty with getting her parents on board with the whole, giant girlfriend thing. Again, something that Luna could totally understand. Still, it left her bored and listless, and the semi-state of solitude she had found herself in was starting to wear on her. Air-performing, as she'd tentatively dubbed it, combining air guitar with an equally faux performance, had been a last-ditch effort to stave off the boredom. And it had worked, to some extent. During the day she concocted songs and concert sets in her head, and during the night, when she was less likely to weird out passersby, she'd let it out. Albeit, in as restrained manner as she could manage. Lisa apparently had more pull with the government than any of her family had realized, but Luna had seen enough monster movies to know that if she allowed herself to cut loose the way she normally did when she performed, she's quickly be mistaken for a pale, freckled Godzilla, and treated appropriately. And getting attacked by planes, and tanks, or god forbid, Matthew Brodrick, would more than likely not be a positive change for her current status quo. The problem, as with anything, is that as fun as it could be to recapture even the smallest amount of her old life, it eventually had to stop. And when that happened, she inevitably found herself alone once more, just her and her thoughts. Again.

"L-Luna?"

The giant brunette stirred from her ennui-induced stupor upon hearing her name, and glanced around, frantically. It took her far longer than she was comfortable admitting, to realize that at her current stature, looking to her left and right was about the least productive thing she could do—

"Luna?"

Which was only reinforced by the second call, which she only now realized came from far below her. Luna followed the sound, as best she could, peering through the darkened yard as she searched for her visitor (desperately hoping that she hadn't finally started hearing voices from loneliness). Finally, she found it, and her eyes widened in surprise as she glimpsed the tiny, unmistakable mop of snow-white hair pushing its way through the night.

"Lincoln!" She squeaked, and immediately turned away, mentally kicking herself for how weird that sounded. But in her defense, she hadn't exactly gotten to talk to many people over the last couple of days. Discretely clearing her throat, Luna turned back around, and after a little more searching, found her brother once more, him now having crept a little closer to her.

"H-hey, little bro," She said, relieved that her voice had regained its usual pitch. She stretched out her arms, resting them atop the roof of the house, and tried to appear more relaxed than she felt.

"What's up, dude?" She asked, leaning over so as to get a better look at the boy. "Kinda late to be out, isn't it?"

"I...had a bad dream," He said. "Not too big of a deal. I think it might have been the cheese dad mixed into dinner. You know?"

She didn't. Food had been a bit of an issue for her, with her already hearty Loud appetite now magnified by her new size. Lisa had said she was confident that she'd be able to make feeding Luna more tenable, but in the meantime, she'd been forced to make do with cheeseburgers ordered in bulk from Burpin' Burger, and whatever other odds and ends her dad could scrape together without breaking the family's finances. But she also didn't believe Lincoln. Her brother wasn't as good of a liar as he thought he was, he tended to insert odd pauses into his sentences, and make weird faces as he attempted to assemble excuses in his mind. It also just seemed implausible. Despite what people might think, Lincoln was a lot tougher than people gave him credit for. Aside from that one incident, where he'd snuck into a scary movie (which, from what she'd been told, actually had been pretty friggin scary), she couldn't remember the last time he'd been so disturbed by a nightmare that it displaced him from his room. It just didn't make sense. On top of that he was out here, barefoot, and in his pajamas. At her size, the weather didn't bother her much, even with her extremely limited wardrobe, but she didn't miss the way her little brother was shivering. The poor kid must have been freezing.

"A-anyway," He continued when she failed to respond. "I heard you out here, and I thought...maybe you could keep me company for a bit? Until I'm ready to go back to sleep?"

Luna's mouth formed a little 'o', as she processed Lincoln's words, and compared them to what he wasn't saying. He had heard her, and that's why...

Luna's heart swelled as realization dawned upon her, and she quickly turned away once more, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill forth. Her little brother, out here, barefoot, clearly freezing his butt off, and all for her sake. That was just so...so Lincoln."

Fairly certain she had mastered herself, and quickly running one hand across her face to wipe away the sudden wetness on her cheeks, Luna turned back to her brother, and slouched a little further, trying to appear relaxed.

"Yeah," She said. "That'd be...pretty cool, Linc. I'd be happy to hang with you."

It was probably just her imagination, but she could have sworn that the smile on Lincoln's face made the night just a little bit brighter.

"Cool!" He exclaimed, scurrying forward. He stopped just a few feet from where her posterior was planted, and looked around. Luna realized he was looking for a place to sit.

"Hold up," She said, placing one hand in front of the diminutive boy. Yeah, that wasn't happening on her watch.

"What...?" He began to ask, confusion evident on his face, but that was quickly dispelled as Luna placed her hand upon the ground, palm up, and beckoned to the snow-capped boy.

"Come on, Linc," She chuckled, trying to project more confidence than she felt. "We can't hang properly if you're all the way down there, right?"

Lincoln face lit up as he took her meaning, and with only the slightest hint of trepidation, he lightly stepped into the center of her palm, and gave her a thumbs up.

Luna gently began to lift him up, trying to hold her hand level, like an elevator, but Lincoln hadn't gotten more than a few inches up into the air before he started wobbling unsteadily. Unwilling to risk dropping him Luna brought her other hand around and wrapped both sets of fingers around the boy, holding him between her palms.

"He's like a doll!", she marveled to herself, resisting the urge to run her fingers up and down her diminutive brother's body. Currently, everything was, relative to her size. The problem was that those things broke far more easily than they would have had they been actual toys, and the last thing she wanted to do was pop her all too fragile little bro by getting too enthusiastic. It was more difficult than she thought it'd be. Something about her brother being this miniature just...heightened, how adorable he was. His little teeth, his cute little turkey tail, it triggered some...instinct, in her, for lack of a better word. She wasn't exactly sure what, exactly, it was she wanted to do, but the longer she held him, the stronger the urge got. Finally, unable to take it any longer, Luna pulled the boy close and hugged him tightly against her chest, cooing in delight as she felt his tiny body squirming against her.

Moments later, she came to her senses, and again remembered the tiny, fragile thing she was squeezing into oblivion.

"Lincoln!" She shouted, panicked, peering down through the poor lighting, unwilling to risk loosening her grip lest she dropped her passenger. Then, to her relief, she saw a tiny hand reach up, and give her a shakey thumbs up. And then she blushed, as it dawned upon her, that it was poking out of her cleavage.

Fumbling for a better grip she lifted Lincoln the rest of the way, and held him in front of her face, exhaling in relief as she looked over her little brother and determined that all his pieces appeared to be where they should be. Though, she couldn't help but notice that his face was a lot redder than it normally was.

"S-sorry, Linc" she apologized, trying to fight down her own embarrassment. Acting on impulse, she leaned forward and planted a kiss on the diminutive boy. She'd been aiming for his cheek, but she ended up getting a lot more of his face than she'd planned. Specifically the...forward...facing...quadrant. Which was probably fine. P...probably. Boy, it was suddenly feeling a lot hotter out here than before...

"It's fine, Luna," Lincoln squawked, lurching upward, and settling down cross-legged in the middle of her palms. His demeanor seemed more timid than it usually was, but he didn't take her eyes off her. She found that she liked that.

"Didn't mean to squeeze you like that, lil bro," She explained, hoping her words sounded more reasonable to him than they did to her. "I just couldn't help it. You're just...really hugable right now."

"It's fine," He waved his hands emphatically. "Really."

"I didn't...hurt you, did I?"

"Not at all," He shook his head. "It was actually really soft..."

Lincoln's eyes widened and he slapped his hands over his mouth, mortified. Luna, for her part, wasn't faring much better, as blood pumped into her rapidly reddening cheeks. She wanted to avert her gaze, there were...thoughts running through her head. Pieces that were clicking into place, neurons connecting and forming conclusions that she really shouldn't be thinking. Not at this time, when she had her sweet little brother like this. Alone, and trapped, with her. Utterly, utterly...helpless.

Suddenly, several things happened at once, so quickly that Luna could scarcely process the order of occurrence. As best she could figure there was a loud, tearing sound. Then a great weight pressed against her, and then...

THOOM

She hit the ground, leaving her flat on her back.

Luna winced at the suddenness of the impact. It was a strange sensation, she'd gotten used to stopping other things since her change, it was weird to suddenly be on the receiving end of that. Groaning, Luna tried to rise, but the weight was still there, arresting her movement.

Only just now realizing that she'd shut her eyes at some point during the fall, Luna opened them, and let out a loud gasp of surprise. There, laying atop her, was the bewildered face of her little brother. Not the doll that she'd been so thoroughly tempted to play with, the actual, human-sized Lincoln!

Daring to hope that her trial was over, that the situation had resolved itself, Luna glanced downward, and froze. Two things had become readily apparent. The first, was that she was still dressed in the brown, makeshift clothing that Leni had assembled for her. Which, presumably would not be the case had she actually returned to her original size.

The second, far more pressing issue, was that while Lincoln appeared to be properly sized relative to her once more, her glance downward had revealed that while she was still fully clothed...or at least, as fully clothed as resources had allowed, Lincoln was naked as the day he was born.

"Uh oh," The siblings uttered in unison, as realization dawned upon them.