AN: I've been dreading this chapter for a long time. Not that I didn't want to write it, just that I knew it would present certain...challenges for me. Which was true, some parts didn't quite work out the way I wanted them to. However, I adapted, as I do, and I'm quite happy with the result. Especially the ending, which is something I've been keeping under my hat for a good while now.
Buuuut I wrote a lot of this in one sitting, and now my wrist is hurting something fierce. So once I finish this authors notes, I'll probably have to give myself a bit of a break before I start on the next one.
SonicMax: Nah. It'll be okay. Probably.
Guest: I'm glad people liked Sam's portrayal. I never quite know what I'm going to do with her when I sit down to write her parts, but that felt right, and it's nice that other people thought so too.
Aquarius231: Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about Lucy.
DreadedCandiru2: No animals were harmed in the production of this story arc. But some Louds were, yeah.
dogbertcarroll : Probably the moon. By which I of course mean Luna.
ReadersCantRead: I'm not that petty, thankfully. Even when I wrote Rusty, who I possess an intense, burning, mild dislike for, I still tried to write him the way the show portrays him. Overwritten, and insufferable. But I should figure out something to do with Luna and Lincoln in Golden Age to help realign the universe.
Wolvenstrom: Thank you. And yes, Luna gets time for a rebuttal here.
Dark Pheonix Paladin X: To be fair, listened to, yet ignored, seems like a pretty solid descriptor of Lincoln's relationship with his sisters in general. So I'm chalking that up as a personal success :)
Wanderer of Fortuna: The payoff is coming...
Jeff: It's rude to peak at the script. Pretend to be surprised anyway.
Mr. Haziq: The kind of money that Lori and Lynn pull down can make a lot of problems go away. Buuuut yeah, this is a higher caliber of oopsie than the Louds usually deal in.
Dragonkeeper10: Insurance. That's funny.
Ok, enjoy the chapter. I'm gonna go rest my arm.
With a flex of her mighty legs, Lynn sent herself flying up out of the small crater she'd created on impact. Instinctively Luna flinched, anticipating another explosive landing. To her surprise, the much larger brunette landed directly in front of her, her descent concluding with little more than a light breeze washing over Luna.
"I've been practicing," Said Lynn to Luna's unasked question, that infuriatingly cocky smirk of her's plastered on her face. "It's been a while, big sis."
"Yeah," Luna sneered, trying to look more confident than she felt. "And I was planning on keeping it that way. What's the matter? Shouldn't you be at work? Or did you already beat up your quota of lunatics for the day?"
"I called her!"
A pair of long legs clad in white spandex stepped up next to Lynn. Long In a very literal sense, as right above the kneecap, they lost all semblance of human shape and sort of melded together, stretching high into the sky like extraordinarily long strands of taffy. It wasn't the weirdest thing she'd seen that day, but still ranked fairly high on that scale, and got bumped up a few places once the legs began withdrawing into themselves, stretchy white matter rapidly flowing downward. Luna was very much relieved when the process finally ended, a human torso finally slamming down into the stretchy, leggy mess, and then popping outward again as a taller-than-average, but otherwise completely normal looking human.
Unfortunately, said person just so happened to be the girl Luna had sent flying through Lincoln's apartment complex as the crow flies, which had involved crashing through more than a few walls.
"Calling Lynn was literally the first thing I did," Stella continued, matter-of-factly. "Like, even before I went and crashed through Lincoln's window. It's standard hero protocol to notify another hero, or a hero dispatch center when you intend to attempt to stop an unscheduled crime in progress."
"Plus, it involved my brother," Lynn added.
"Plus, it involved her brother!" Stella echoed, nodding emphatically. "So obviously I was going to tell Lynn."
"Which was the right thing to do," Lynn agreed, nodding sagely. "Atta girl, Stella,"
She reached out and gave the spandex-clad girl an affectionate pat on the head. To Luna's surprise, Stella leaned into the senior heroine's hand, beaming happily as she received her praise.
"W-well," Luna responded. "Last I checked, you didn't have the monopoly on being Linc's sister. But maybe that tidbit's slipped your mind. Looks like you've gotten pretty comfortable, playing house with him. You and Lori. Funny, that. I seem to remember her pushing that agreement on us to do the exact opposite of that!"
"H-hey!" Lynn sputtered, and Luna found a small amount of satisfaction in making the ever-cocky super athlete lose her cool, even to this minor extent. "It's not like that!"
"So you haven't been shacking up with little bro?"
"It's….complicated!" Lynn shouted, stamping her foot in frustration, another minor tremor rocking the area as her powerful limb pulverized the ground beneath it, landing entirely too close to where Luna currently lay for her liking.
"We're trying, to make it work," Said Lynn, her voice tense with emotion. "We're trying to be a family again."
"And you didn't think to give ol' Luna a ring? That it?"
"You've been a ghost, Luna!" Lynn snapped. "We couldn't get in touch with you even if we wanted to. Hell, none of us even knew for sure if you were alive!"
Luna's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "And yet, you don't seem all that surprised to see me. Now why might that be?"
Lynn crossed her arms over her chest.
"I've...heard things," She admitted. "Things I didn't like. I'd hoped they weren't true, but…"
Luna laughed. It was short, harsh, and completely devoid of mirth.
"Self-righteous as always," She sneered. "You don't know what I've been through."
"And what the hell am I supposed to think when you show up out of the blue and pull this shit!?" Lynn shouted, gesturing to the hole in Lincoln's apartment, which was clearly visible from their current vantage.
"You thought...what? That you could just, swoop in and snatch him out from under us? Like when we were kids? Give me a break!"
Luna's hand involuntarily clenched into a fist.
"And you thought you'd just get away? That I wouldn't find you? What the hell was your exit strategy here? Because so far…" Lynn snorted contemptuously."I've gotta say. I'm not impressed."
Trying to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to her actions, Luna sat upright, planting her palms on the ground, one on each side of her body.
"Well, I kind of thought it'd go something...like...this!"
Pushing off the ground with both of her hands, leaving her body suspended horizontally above the ground, tucking her legs against her body as it swung into position. Then she kicked her legs out as hard as she could, both of her boots impacting against Lynn's leg simultaneously.
...And then Luna crashed back into the ground, a strangled cry escaping her throat as waves of pain radiated throughout her body. It was like kicking a tree trunk. Except it wasn't, because thanks to her force amplification trick, Luna had shattered actual trees with that same maneuver. But apparently, her not-so-little sister was made of sterner stuff.
Lynn crouched down, looming over her fallen sibling, and at that moment, it was difficult for Luna's pain-addled brain to determine what hurt more. Her feet, or her pride, as Lynn favored her with a mocking smile.
"Oh, yeah," Lynn chortled in bemusement. "FYI? That still doesn't work on me."
"I was afraid of that," Luna hissed, sucking air between her gritted teeth. "But I was kind of hoping I'd gotten stronger. Or that you'd taper off at some point."
"Nope!" Lynn declared, giving her muscle-bound leg a meaty slap. "I'm basically impact-proof, which apparently includes your dumb sound stuff."
She leaned a little lower, that omnipresent smirk of hers only growing more pronounced.
"So," She said, "You about ready to call it quits? Or do you have any other stupid tricks you want to try."
"Maybe…" Luna rasped, softly. Her eyes fluttered, her breath growing more shallow. "Maybe…"
Lynn leaned lower, cocking one ear to the side.
"Maybe...just—" Luna's eyes snapped open. "One more thing!"
Pushing off with her hands, Luna slid right underneath the leotard-clad leviathan, passing straight through her spread legs. Slamming her boots into the dirt to halt her momentum, and wincing at the sharp flash of pain that wracked her body as she put pressure on her poor, abused feet, she launched herself upright and quickly regained her footing.
She spun around to face her estranged sister, and seeing that her fellow brunette still bent over, peering through her powerfully muscled legs, for what felt like the first time in a while, Luna smiled.
It wasn't a nice smile.
Luna darted forward and leaped, pouncing upon her sister's oh-so-exposed back. Lynn, to her credit, immediately began to straighten up, but she wasn't fast enough. Luna hooked her legs around the younger girl's waist for leverage, and faulted forward, scrabbling for purchase with her fingers as "forward", quickly turned to "upward". By the time Lynn was standing upright again, Luna had scaled the larger girl and was now standing atop her shoulders, shaking with barely contained mirth as Lynn glanced around in confusion.
"Hey, Lynn!" She shouted, swinging her arms out wide. To her delight, Lynn's head jerked upward, and the titaness started in surprise, gobsmacked that it was now Luna who had the upper hand.
"How does this trick sound to you?" Luna jeered, leaning her body forward as she swung her arms downward, slamming them against the sides of Lynn's head with all the strength she could bring to bear.
THOOM!
The sheer volume of the resultant noise was indescribable, orders of magnitudes beyond anything she'd ever tried before, to the point where Luna herself was momentarily deafened by the din. Normally, she'd never resort to such measures. Luna knew better than anyone just how dangerous her powers could be, and she normally made it a point to refrain from bringing to bear more force than was absolutely necessary. But Lynn, of course, was no ordinary opponent. She was a top-ranked hero, blessed with unimaginable strength and durability, and had proven time and time again to be especially resistant to Luna's own powers. No, Lynn was someone Luna absolutely could not afford to hold back against.
Luna remained in place, her hands clasped against her sister's head, waiting for some kind of reaction from the larger girl. And between the silence and the stillness, it almost seemed like time itself was standing still. After what seemed like an eternity, Lynn sagged forward, and Luna allowed herself a sharp, relieved intake of breath, daring to hope it had worked.
An instant later, she felt Lynn's meaty hand grab her by the shirt collar, and yank Luna off her back. She next thing the elder Loud knew, she was being suspended in mid-air, held right up to Lynn's face. And it was now, close to her sister as she was, that Luna noticed something writhing just above Lynn's left eye.
It was her "anger vein".
"MAAAAWP!" Lynn bellowed, the seemingly wordless cry physically pushing Luna back a smidge from the sheer volume alone.
"W-whazzat, Lynn?" Luna rasped, genuinely fatigued from the display of acrobatics and ingenuity she'd just pulled off. And was now deeply, deeply regretting.
"I said," Lynn growled, one fist clenching, and letting out a chorus of pops as all of her knuckles cracked simultaneously.
"Now I have to hurt you. A little." She added that last part, almost as an afterthought.
A few minutes earlier…
"Sam! Cut it out!" Lincoln protested.
After being displaced a second time by Lynn's overly dramatic entry, Sam had decided to relocate herself and Lincoln a bit further away. Not to the extent that it would look like they were trying to run away, just enough to improve their chances of staying out of what was beginning to look like an inevitable fight between the super siblings. Given that the dialogue between the pair had almost immediately devolved into a shouting match, Lincoln was forced to admit that this was probably the wisest decision under the circumstances. Granted, that would make it that much harder for him to deescalate the situation (which was already looking to be a tall order as things stood), but given that he was only just starting to get the feeling back in his legs, being around them in his current state would only make things...more...dangerous...for him…
It was possible that Lori hadn't been that far off base when she'd made her judgment call all those years ago.
Even so, the dilemma Lincoln now found himself in was that he was desperately wracking his famed, plan-producing brain for some way out of this mess—
"Sam!"
—but was finding it difficult to focus, given that the older girl was dead set on fussing over him.
"Sorry, Linc," She muttered, as she continued to paw at his clothes and hair. "But you've got all this grass and stuff on you. If you'd just hold still for a bit, I might be able to get you to look a little less like a pile of lawn clippings.
"I'll live," He insisted, catching one of her wrists in his hand while it was inches away from his chest. He then immediately realized that to a casual onlooker, their current situation would look very much like he was sharing an intimate moment with an...if he was honest, extremely pretty girl...who also happened to be his sister's girlfriend. As soon as his head caught up with his hands, he promptly released his hold on the girl. Partway through the motion, he attempted to throttle his movements, trying to make them seem more casual than frantic.
A shame then, that the small smile on Sam's face suggested that she'd seen through his attempted deception.
"Look," He said, trying to ignore the sudden burning in his ears. "If anything, I should be the one worrying about you, right? After all, I...kind of fell on you."
"Yeah, that wasn't great," She agreed, wincing. "I hate Plan C. But at least this time I didn't fall on my case!"
She reached out and gave the case a quick pat.
"Does that happen...a lot?" Lincoln asked, uncertain how to process that.
"Me on it. It on me. Why, there was this one time—!"
THOOM!
And then Lincoln was on his back again. The first thing he did was try to figure out exactly how many times he'd found himself in this exact situation within the last hour or so. The second thing he did was silently give thanks that, at least this time, he'd retained consciousness. The third thing he did was notice that Sam was now straddling him, saying...wait. Why wasn't she saying anything? Her lips were clearly moving.
"What?" Said Lincoln. At least, that was what he'd intended to say. He could feel his lips moving, but no sound seemed to be accompanying those movements. Before he could pontificate on this phenomenon further, Sam grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him close, leaving their faces only inches apart. Something that was impossible to ignore, given the complete silence that had encompassed them. Strange that her lips were still moving though—
"—OKAY, LINCOLN?" Sam wailed, shaking Lincoln as if his life depended on it. "SAY SOMETHING!"
"Mawp?" Came his reply. Lincoln's head lolled as Sam abruptly stopped shaking him, drooping down to his chest as he waited for the nausea, and the strange rattling he could swear was coming from inside his head to dissipate. Fortunately, both things eventually passed, and Lincoln lifted his head, finding himself looking into the worried gaze of his blonde companion.
"I...think, I'm okay," He said, blinking as he slowly sounded out each word. Strange what temporary sensory deprivation could do to you. Now articulation suddenly seemed a novelty for him.
"Oh, good," Sam breathed a sigh of relief. "Luna would never forgive me if something happened to you on my...uh, Linc? Whatcha lookin' at?"
"That," Lincoln said, pointing past the older girl to the conflict that was unfolding a little ways away. Though, "conflict" may have been overselling matters a bit…
"Oof," Sam released Lincoln as her entire body winced in sympathy. "Poor Luna."
"Y-yeah," Lincoln agreed. "I...think she might have made Lynn mad."
"Isn't that just normal Lynn? Oh, wow. I didn't think that human accordion thing worked outside of cartoons…"
"Yeah, Stella looks impressed. And also a little sick. Oh, I think she's stopping? No, wait. She's...um, yeah. We should probably scoot back a little."
"Why's that? It looks like she's straightening Luna out again."
"Well..."
Lincoln had intended to explain the surprisingly intricate nuances of Lynn's artisan skill for manipulating the human body, something he'd experienced more than his fair share of times even before his sisters gained their powers—
"AAAAAAAH!"
But the situation ended up becoming rather self-explanatory as a screaming, purple and brown missile rocketed through the air straight at them. Lincoln had just enough time to admire Lynn's trademark, perfect spiral before the projectile slammed head-first into the ground only inches away from their feet.
"...Never mind," Said Lincoln, licking his index finger and holding it up experimentally. "Looks like she remembered to account for air drag this time."
Lincoln gingerly took Luna by the shoulders, feeling oddly nostalgic for a moment. Luna had an odd habit of coming home after staying out all night, and not quite being able to make it to bed before passing out from sheer exhaustion. On multiple occasions, Lincoln had descended the stairs the following morning and found his big sister in this exact position; face down and butt stuck in the air. Which made it difficult to drag her back to her room without waking her up, but somehow he'd always managed.
Trying his best to avoid admiring the view (he could swear Luna's skirt used to be longer…), Lincoln deftly flipped his sister over. Her eyes were glassy, but he quickly took note of the rising and falling of her chest, which seemed to be a good sign. And, as it happened, was another thing he should probably avoid staring at for too long…
"Luna?" Sam asked, leaning forward and gently cupping the fallen girl's cheek in her hand. "You okay honey?"
"Hurts," Luna squeaked, her voice uncharacteristically high-pitched. "May have bitten off more than I could chew, here."
"Oh, right," Said Lincoln, giving Luna a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "Your powers never worked all that well on Lynn."
"What's the play, Lunes?" Sam inquired, worriedly glancing at the oversized brunette who was slowly making her way over to the trio. "Don't think I can carry both of you…"
Luna took a deep breath, and then exhaled. Now her eyes were clear and focused.
"...I'm going to have to tag you in, Sam."
Lincoln's first instinct was to balk at what was clearly Luna's concussion talking. To his surprise, however, Sam visibly flinched at the statement.
"It's that bad, huh?" She asked the levity in her voice at odds with how tense she looked.
"I was hoping it wouldn't come to this," Luna confessed. "But, you plan for the worst. And this is...pretty close to the worst-case scenario. Sorry to put this on you, babe…"
Lincoln glanced between the two girls, feeling very much like he'd missed an important episode of an ongoing drama. Which...given what he'd gleaned about Luna's life, probably wasn't far from the truth.
"Look, Sam?" He began. "I don't know what's going on here, but you—"
"It's fine, Linc." She said, cutting him off. "Normally I'd be conflicted about this next part, but…"
She looked back to Lynn, and her lips flattened into a grim smile.
"...I think I can make an exception this time."
Sam reached for her guitar case. With a flick of her wrists, she released both locks and popped the lid of the case, revealing…
...her...guitar?
Lincoln blinked in confusion, mentally noting that his compass for weirdness was all kinds of screwed up at this point. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to have been in the case all this time, but somehow a guitar wasn't it. He prepared to voice his puzzlement, but before he could, Sam rose to her feet, rising up, snatching her guitar, and giving it a deft twirl before bringing it to rest on her shoulders, all in a single motion.
That was when Lincoln noticed the large, crystalline shard embedded in the center of the instrument.
"Hey, Lincoln?"
He tore his eyes from the strangely enticing shard and saw that Sam was looking over her shoulder at him.
"Take care of Luna while I handle this, alright?" She asked. "And…"
Her gaze softened, for what seemed like mere moments, before hardening once more.
"Please don't hold this against me."
Lynn missed the days when all of her problems could be solved by simply punching them. She knew, of course, that this was never the case. That her knee-jerk tendency to resort to violence often made things far, far worse. But before reuniting with Lincoln, she was able to live in blissful ignorance of that all too-obvious truth. And while she wouldn't trade her current life for anything, there were times when she missed not having to think about the ramifications of her actions.
She'd gone too far. She knew she'd gone too far while she was in the process of going too far. Luna had...unearthed things in her. Feelings, insecurities that she'd thought long buried. She should have been happy when she'd found out that her older sister had turned up. Lincoln wanted the family back together. And, if Lynn was honest with herself, she did too. If anything, it was serendipitous that one of the sisters they'd had no way of contacting had simply revealed herself. It was, objectively speaking, a good thing that Luna was here now.
But she'd been furious when she'd gotten Stella's call, that someone with a description very much like her wayward sister was in the process of kidnapping her brother. She'd become angrier still when she'd arrived at the apartment and found Stella literally putting herself back together amid a trail of destruction that had clearly been Luna's handiwork. It was a small mercy that the frequent...disagreements, she and Lori had gotten into during the early stages of their revamped relationship with Lincoln had caused the other residents on that floor to slowly move out, one by one, or things could have been much, much worse.
But she'd really lost it when Luna had actually managed to hurt her. That was a surprise, and not a particularly happy one. Like all her older sisters, Lynn had her share of baggage when it came to Luna. She was, of course, pretty. Not to the extent that Lori or Leni was, but certainly more than Lynn herself was. More than pretty enough to draw Lincoln's eye, something that, to Lynn's eternal frustration, never went away, even after Sam entered the picture. But more than that, Luna was enormously talented. All the Loud sisters were, herself included, but anyone with eyes could see that Luna and Lisa were very much in leagues of their own. Lisa was obviously going to change the world with her science, either by leading humanity into a golden age of enlightenment, or conquering them, and forcing everyone to change for the better. Even after the complications brought about by the emergence of meta-humans, and Lisa subsequently vanishing without a trace, Lynn truly believed that one of those outcomes was still inevitable.
But Luna's music was...divine. There was simply no other way to describe it. The girl took sounds and words and transformed them into pure, soulful, lyrical poetry. When Luna played, people listened. They felt. And sometimes, they wept. It was magic, a legitimate superpower in a pre-meta world. And it was...humbling. Infuriating, to be related to someone like that. Lincoln would stare at Luna, entranced by her siren song, and it was abundantly clear that he loved her for it. She'd counted it as a small mercy that her little bro had been too dense to realize that Luna very much returned those feelings.
After they got their powers, conflicts among the sisters became the norm. Violence of varying degrees proved commonplace, and among the many perks that came with Lynn's was that she was functionally invulnerable to Luna's. It wasn't exactly fair, Luna's powers were decidedly of a non-combative nature. In a better family, one that wasn't constantly fighting among itself, she would have been free to learn to use her powers to elevate her music to even more incredible heights, but instead, Luna spent her time figuring out how to use her talents to hurt people. Because she had to. And she had gotten pretty good at it, it hadn't been very long before Luna was giving as good as she got among their other sisters. Mostly. Lynn had been delighted when they'd realized that Lynn was simply too tough to be phased by Luna's weaponized sonic trickery, and she'd celebrated that turn of good fortune by pounding Luna's face into the ground, which quickly became a favorite past time of hers every time the aspiring rockstar gave her an excuse to do so. She wasn't proud of it, but at the time she'd been a dumb kid. Young, driven by jealousy and inadequacy, and unexpectedly given an inordinate amount of power long before she was emotionally ready for it. Still, in the quiet moments, there were a lot of things from her childhood that she still dwelt upon and regretted, and the rapid disintegration of her relationship with Luna had always been one of the most prominent.
This was finally the opportunity to try and make things right between herself and her older sister. But then...Luna had got her! It was a small thing, she'd shaken off the pain so quickly that it may as well have not happened at all. But it did happen. Luna had figuratively made her bleed. A pinprick, if that, but Lynn already hadn't been in a great state of mind going into that confrontation. That last straw brought a lot of terrible feelings back, and for a moment Lynn fell into her old ways and responded as she always did.
She hit things.
But that wasn't an excuse. And as Lynn made her way to Lincoln and the girls who were trying to take him—that was to say, her sister, who was probably hurt pretty bad from Lynn's not-so-gentle ministrations, she deeply regretted the way she'd acted in the heat of the moment. And she'd hoped that they could still salvage things from here. That Lincoln, the person she loved more than anything in the world, wouldn't have to suffer the consequences of her actions.
And...speaking of the consequences of her actions…
Lynn slowed her stride to a gentle stop, one perplexed eyebrow raising as she took in the cyan-streaked blonde who was walking to meet her, with far more purpose and confidence than anyone reasonably should, especially under these circumstances.
"That you, Sharp?" Lynn asked, crossing her arms over her chest. The question was, of course, rhetorical. Though older, and more matured, as were they all, Sam otherwise looked nearly identical to the image Lynn retained in her mind. Same stupid hair, same stupid jacket. The same stupid guitar, even. It was...actually kind of strange, now that she thought about it, just how little the fashion choices of the people closest to her had changed in the last nine years or so. She briefly found herself wondering if the only thing stopping her from adopting an adaptation of her old look, was merely that they just didn't make jerseys in her current size.
It wasn't, of course. There was also the fact that she had a lot of goods to show off, following her extra special dose of super-powered puberty, and she enjoyed doing so. It gave Lori a taste of her own medicine, and it made Lincoln very appreciative of what she had to offer. But it was an amusing thought diversion, nevertheless.
"That's right, Lynn," Said Sam. She was smiling, but it was a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. That was...perplexing, to say the least.
"That's...cool", Lynn replied, neutrally. "Look, I don't know what this is, but don't get in my way, alright? I've gotta settle things with Lu—"
She was cut-off mid-sentence as Sam unshouldered her guitar and jabbed the head in Lynn's face.
"Yeah, about that…" Said the blonde, giving the body of the instrument a loud thump with one of her hands. "You're actually going to be dealing with me now."
"Meaning...what, exactly?" Lynn asked, desperately trying not to sound bemused by the absurdity of the situation. "Are you gonna play me a song, or something?"
"Something like that." Sam nodded, lowering the guitar and placing her fingers on the strings. A quick flourish and a guitar pick appeared in her right hand. "It's called, 'You Threw Me Out a Window!'"
Lynn winced at the poignant reminder of her younger, impulsive self. "That...did happen...didn't it?"
"Well," Sam chuckled, darkly. "You also beat up my girlfriend. So...yeah. I think this time I'm actually going to enjoy this."
"Enjoy…?" Lynn shook her head, silently berating herself for getting distracted. "Look, Sam. About that. And...also both thi—"
VRRRRRRM
Again Lynn was silenced. This time as Sam sharply brought her pick down upon the strings, splitting the air with the sound that erupted forth.
It was at this point, that Lynn realized that the guitar wasn't plugged into anything. A mystery that was seemingly solved as a large, crystalline shard embedded in the center of the guitar suddenly began to glow with an unearthly light. Which, of course, only begged further questioning…
"One sec, Lynn" Sam said, grinning as she lifted the neck of the guitar into the air. "Momma's gotta bake…"
Sam's fingers exploded into motion, dancing along the strings of her guitar with blinding speed, and for a moment, Lynn was taken aback.
So exemplary was Luna at her craft, that it was legitimately difficult at times to remember that the Louds had not only been blessed with having one musical virtuoso in their lives. In Sam, Luna had not only found a partner in romance, but one who was every bit as skilled a guitarist as the Loud girl herself. And while Lynn wasn't sure what the point of this little display was, it was undeniably impressive, nevertheless. So impressive, in fact, that Lynn was very tempted to simply close her eyes and allow herself to be carried away by the display of musical mastery.
The only thing that kept her focused on the situation at hand, was the way the crystal in the guitar continued to glow with increasing intensity. Seemingly emboldened by the guitarist's artful shredding, the harder Sam played, the harder the crystal shined. Finally, Sam's playing ceased, her fingers abruptly halting, the sound of her song cutting out, leaving only the echo of her guitar's wailing, resounding around the pair as it played by some phantom accompaniment.
The crystal was pulsating now, nosily crackling as tendrils of jet-black electricity ran up and down its surface. Slowly, Sam raised the hand holding her guitar pick high into the air…
...and slammed it upon the strings.
VRRRRRRM!
"WOAH!" Lynn shouted, startled as a torrent of obsidian-colored lightning rained from the sky, falling so rapidly and in such succession that they seemed to coalesce into a single, enormous bolt. Her instincts kicking in, Lynn leaped backward, hoping to avoid what she now perceived to be an attack.
...However, she wasn't the target.
The lightning instead slammed directly into the guitarist. A concentrated fist of heavenly fury striking the girl where she stood...and exploding.
In some ways, it was the tamest explosion the apartment had seen that day. It did, however, kick up an enormous amount of dust, and while Lynn had intended to charge in and try to retrieve the girl who had seemingly engineered her own demise, she was stopped by a massive, dense cloud of grit that was kicked up.
"Sam!" Lynn shouted. Or, tried to, anyway, blinded and choking as she was by the dust cloud that had descended upon her. She'd tried to make headway, but even her mighty lungs were finding it difficult to function in this current environmental state. She made ready to leap forward, hoping to escape the confines of the cloud, and get a better read on the situation from the outside. But before she could, a low, rhythmic humming began pulsating around her, and the cloud...began...to dissipate. The pressure on her sinuses now rapidly dissipating in kind, Lynn spat out a tart, mouthful of grime that had threatened to clog her lungs, and rubbed away the debris remaining in her eyes.
As the cloud cleared, a lone figure became visible. Not the comparatively diminutive musician, however. This woman stood tall amid the rapidly clearing air. To Lynn's surprised estimate, roughly as tall as herself, and with a physique to match. Powerfully built, yet undeniably feminine limbs bared against the elements, attached to an equally powerful-looking core, encased in jet-black armor. The combination gave the overall effect of what appeared to be an armored leotard. But any amusement that could arise from that comparison would be quickly dispelled by the long, imposing, ebony cape that flowed behind her, held in place by an ivory, skull choker clasped around her neck, as well as the menacing, spiked boots that adorned her feet.
As Lynn instinctively fell into a combat stance, preparing to confront the woman whose every aspect screamed DANGER at the top of its figurative lungs, she froze as her eyes fell upon a very familiar feature. A wild mane of golden hair flowing behind the figure as freely as her cape. Streaked, with cyan.
"...Sam?" Lynn uttered, not so much speaking the words as breathing them. Still, the woman appeared to have heard her, turning to her attention to the heroine, and smiling.
It wasn't a nice smile.
"Not anymore!" She called out with a boisterous laugh, her voice equal parts melodic and intimidating as it forcefully echoed around the surrounding area.
The woman raised her guitar with one hand, which was also transformed. Its formerly cheerful, pink exterior was now as black as her armor, and its body was now lined with jagged, painful-looking spikes, giving it an appearance less like that of a musical instrument, and more along the lines of a medieval instrument of torture. Pointing it at Lynn, she flicked the strings with one finger, and immediately the exterior began crackling with obsidian-colored electricity, causing the woman's eyes to alight with barely contained glee.
"Now, you may call us...Ragna-Rock!"