Sins In Twisters

by Blonkess

When Lincoln was destined to never have success like his family, after surviving the Royal Woods' Tornado, his future takes him on the path of becoming a renowned storm chaser. But as years pass since that day, his family tries to hold together after freak disasters put a halt to the sisters' lives when Lisa discovers a past family secret that tells Lincoln's time is running out.

33. A Cursed Bloodline

Sins In Twisters

Chapter 33: A Cursed Bloodline

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If there were ever a time when Lisa wished she had a temporarily time-displaced device that would give her 30 seconds more to come up with a plan to find the fastest way out of this mess, she was sure in that half-minute she'd go back in time to tell her past self to lock the door or ensure that everyone couldn't hear her.

Lynn practically marched into the room, her knuckles cracking so tightly that both of them could hear from afar. She flicked on the light, making all of them get sun spots, trying to readjust as the rest of the sisters pilled into the room that was smaller than their own. Luan was the last one to enter and did have the intelligence to close and lock the door behind her. She might as well have sealed off an airlock from how still the room had become.

Lynn stood at the foot of the bed, arms crossed with a scornful look and fire in her eyes, with the siblings forming a sort of semi-circle behind her and around the bed. She could see confused, curious, and angered looks over various types, but looking over to Lucy, the adult goth standing a little further away from the group, she cast a gloomy look to her that sent the message she, too, didn't wish for this to happen. Even if they could tell them one day, it would have been direct and calm, not eavesdropping. Lisa honestly blamed it on the thin walls this trailer was made from. It was no wonder why these things were death traps in twisters when you can get cornered like this…

There was no way out of this one…

It was a massive breach that Lily just… wandered into her room when she made her statement. It was outright opening and blowing up the floodgates that everyone else followed immediately. With a defeated and tired sigh, she swung around to face Lynn directly. Her legs were over the side, barely touching the floor, and her hands held firm on the edge, but she didn't look up to meet the sportswoman in the eyes.

The slight sound of her moving on the bed was the only sound in the room short of their breathing, but being so close, Lisa could hear Lynn taking deep breaths like an angry bull teetering on the edge of going ballistic.

No one said anything; all eyes were on Lynn, who was driving this ship. She stared down at her young sister like a tribal leader judging their own kin.

"You knew." her voice was low but strong enough to shake the walls, "You… you fucking knew this whole time…" she said, not caring about swearing in front of her younger sisters. "And you didn't say anything…"

"It's not true…" Lisa said quietly but didn't look up.

"Is it now? So, if we didn't read that little speech you were recording, would you admit to finding out today? Or recently?" Lynn stated like a parent who does not believe a lie from their child.

"It's not like that," Lisa said firmly, Looking past the top rims of her glasses. I had been actively searching for his whereabouts for the better part of the last three years. I had spent my vast amount of time aside from personal work trying to narrow down where he had gone, even during the stress-filled times when my plate was overloaded when having to tend to everyone else."

Lynn eased up on her force, but not entirely. She knew Lisa was dead right to that. They wouldn't be here together at all if it weren't for her busting her ass for months trying to fix all their problems. It made them all realize the stress they would put on one another in impossible situations and how far it could drive someone into the ground. It was just another reminder of this in the past they took for granted…

"I'll give you that point. But that doesn't excuse the months between then and now." Lynn's ire spiked, "So let's start with the simplest thing you can answer for all of us: how long?"

"*sigh*... since the 10th of November…" Mostly, everyone's eyes burst wide in surprise. Some quickly shut them tight as memories of that hellish day flashed across all of them. Even Lynn had to close her eyes for a moment and look away.

Since that day in November, once they had been given this trailer to be used as a home for a time until they could rebuild their lives, they had a single sibling meeting that occurred when Lily had been discharged from the hospital. During it all, they debated how things would be for life moving forward, taking up extra responsibilities and duties. How would things involve their parents being out of commission and ensuring they still had food on the table?

But, in a cross of reluctantly and unanimously, they had agreed that day would be one they would banish from their memory. It started normal and ended normal. It was just a typical Monday blur from that morning to the next. There was some protest given what happened with their home and brother, but with it feeling like they had lost him again and their lives coming to where it was now, the memory of that day could stay buried in the past.

Lisa was one of those who personally strongly agreed to the idea of helping ease the mental burden on everyone. She thought it was a bad dream while they physically recovered. Since then, she had been quiet about things; to bring it back up like this was a curve ball that Lynn didn't expect.

"You remember when we crossed paths in the hallway that morning? I was awake and tired from pulling an all night, but I could finally pinpoint his home base. The same one we've seen in photos and his show… right in the middle of Oklahoma…"

"I'm sorry, but…" Lola said, stepping forward. I seriously find that doubtful. You can track down every world leader in minutes, but it took you three years to find Lincoln?"

"Yeah… Can't you hijack satellites and cameras and all that? Try hacking his account to find where he is?" Luan said, knowing her little sister wasn't above doing all that to find something or someone.

"I've tried, but I don't know exactly how he managed to do it. Having his mail be routed through a separate address is one way. The lack of direct connections between the location of the farm and the broader strokes of the state made it harder to pinpoint when so many matched the description. His constant technological change made it harder to track him through the cellular network, let alone triangulate where he came from."

Leaning back, she pulled over her computer. She was dragging it onto her lap and switching out from her lodges to a set of satellite images taken over various times of the year looking on top of the same plot of land and house. "He spent the better part of 18 years with us. With all the stuff I did with him, it's not hard to guess he's developed his own ways to stay hidden from my own methods…"

"So… you didn't know he was coming that morning?" Luna asked, to which Lisa shook her head.

"No… but had I been following his movements… I don't know if I would have discovered his plan. Since the Kingman tornado, our brother has mostly kept himself out of sight. We all know there was more in that finale episode and how the show portrayed the end of that chase. Ronnie's experience alone speaks for itself, and Clyde's earlier guilt all pointed to something more significant…"

"Like what?" Lynn asked, and Lisa became silent again. Growing tired of it, she came up with her own idea. "You know what. Sibling meeting, right here and now. All those in favor?"

The hands of the twins and the four oldest were all raised, and Lucy took a slower time to raise her hand. Lynn glanced over to see Lily doing the same, and Lisa still didn't respond.

"Nine out of ten, the vote is passed, " the athlete said as the siblings repositioned themselves to be more comfortable. Lynn reached down, took off her shoe, went to the nightstand on the side, and smacked it down like a gavel in court.

"Meeting in session. The subject of today is what Lisa is keeping away from us about Lincoln."

Lisa couldn't resist scoffing at all of this and being put on trial for no crime except trying to keep everyone safe from doing something rash, knowing that they were about to fall into a pit of chaos that could form its own storm strong enough to tear the roof off this place.

This instability made her not want her siblings to know about what she knew. They might have been more mentally stable now than that Monday, but this was running on the mindsets that had been changed because of that day. Even if she hadn't gone chasing, stayed home with the others, and waited until everyone returned home, there still wouldn't have been any home. They deserved to know, but right now, it still didn't feel right. It didn't help that her scientific side had a literal clock counting down that, in a technicality, they were almost under those 150 days within just a few hours.

In all this squabbling, they were burning time. Sometimes, it's better to hold out and walk around the more significant points, but getting them to understand what was at stake would make them all on the same page from here on out.

She looked back over to Lucy, knowing what those stakes were; she understood the implications if they knew everything. She sent a mental message to her sister, seeking her advice in this situation.

The goth, feeling her frustration, gave her a single slow nod like she was glancing at the floor—enough for anyone not to see.

Taking a deep breath, Lisa gathered her thoughts. Finding that overloaded file in a mess atop her desk, collecting dust as if just blowing it clear off the cover, revealed its importance.

This wasn't the best situation, but she could find some way to work with it.

"You really want to know?" She asked, head low with a voice to match like she was asking if they were ready to experience horror.

"YES!" Some sisters shouted, eager to know what the 13-year-old had to say.

Pulling her legs up, she shifted in her seat to turn around and face the wall above the headboard. She placed her laptop just before the pillows and began to fire commands rapidly as a blue light emitted from the top suddenly projected onto the wall. It got bigger until it took up so much space that Lily and Lynn had to move away and join the others to see what it was when the whole room became bathed in light.

Two files were pulled up, one unlabeled with only a few pages, and the other labeled Investigation 201-47.7 'Second Storm', which was utterly loaded. Photos, documents, recordings, transcriptions, and more files were displayed on either side of the projection.

Her typing paused, and she thought back over how she was going to take this in steps to make sure they all stayed on the same page and understood what was to be said and shown. "I have a question for you all," she said, getting their attention.

"Why does Lincoln chase? Why does our single brother risk his life going into storms and disasters to get it on camera and avoid our home and us so much yet send the supplies we need to rebuild our lives several times over?"

They felt they knew the answer to that question, given that he'd said it himself, but they all had their own ideas.

He said, at times, it was to capture what it was like being next to something that felt so alien to the world that you couldn't understand it until you thought it. Being next so, something that wasn't alive yet could just as quickly kill you and everyone in its path.

But to some, that felt more like what he'd say in everyday conversation. They had seen that his successes had built up in a short amount of time for him to keep sending all this month to them and afford the things that he did, along with having the chance to sell merchandise and even get a running TV show to do a whole season with him.

However, for those in particular, it was for glory. For years, he had been in their shadow, trying to find somewhere that felt like his calling, and every time they either got in the way or made it horrible to him, this was his path to telling the world he wasn't in that shadow anymore. His staying away was pushing that fact further; he didn't need them at all to succeed.

Giving them enough time to think this over, Lisa continued, "As I'm sure you're all aware…" She glanced at Lily for a second, knowing that she didn't fully know what had happened that day but understood the aftermath had changed the family. "The events that transpired throughout March in 2016 are regarded as… a difficult time for us."

They all winced like they had just become sick. It was bad enough being reminded about the 10th; the mess that was that time felt like they had just swallowed a poison and could feel its effects instantly take over.

"On the seventh week of what has been labeled as the 'Bad Luck Incident 2016', our brother was locked outside during a severe thunderstorm event that would lead to the spawn of the Royal Woods EF3 that stopped directly in front of our house. Though he attempted to seek shelter with us or in the house, he was caught in the storm and recorded this."

She moved towards a small video file and dragged it open. Muting the sound, she played the clip that wasn't even a minute long but showed the point of view from a phone holding someone's shaking hand while a violent tornado was feet away. Out of the edge of the frame, you could see a hand hesitantly reaching out, as if the user were about to touch the funnel if they took one step closer until the vortex began to tighten and break apart. Disappearing before their eyes and the camera lens before they lowered the phone, you could make out the edge of their house and the front of the garage.

"As you know, being left outside during this event following what we had put him through the last weeks had caused the climax. The following fight and his departure with our grandfather for several days to allow himself, and as a consequence, us to think over what had happened. He released the video to the internet, which caused its own chain reaction that made our situation go from very bad to worse."

They all cringed at the memories that hellish week had become with them in the middle of it. They didn't know that he uploaded the video until people started making it a trending item on social media and sharing it all over the place so it'd eventually find its way to their friend groups and the broader reaches of town.

The first few days back in school felt nerve-racking, but once that video was out, it felt like the walls were seconds away from collapsing. Many pointed out how their brother had been stuck wearing the squirrel costume for weeks whenever he was with his family anywhere in town, and the fact he was missing after the video didn't help the narrative that they were responsible for possibly putting him into the hospital or killing him.

Their parents had to fight a legal battle to prove that wasn't true. Both were practically on the edge of losing their jobs, while all the siblings were on the verge of losing their passions and friends. Love and trust were lost and broken, and by the first weekend without their brother, it felt like, at any moment, the whole time, they would be coming down their street demanding justice.

Until that Sunday when Lincoln came back.

Being away from them had caused a massive difference between them. They were ready to get on their hands and knees and beg him to forgive them, to do anything to make things right. Instead, he waved it off, saying that what was down was down and that they needed to keep moving forward.

In time, he was the talk of the town. Some called him 'Tornado Loud' when he was in public, how things happened that led to him taking that video, and all the reactions to it. What attention the town's ire had for them was refocused on caution and safety for their brother. Many people checked in to see how he was doing while the legal system prepared to divide the family.

They would have begged him not to split them up and that they'd do anything to keep the family together.

And what does he do?

Convinces them all to forget it…

He told them it was his actions that day, his wanting to stay outside and enjoy the weather when it was more peaceful, and his lack of action that caught him up in the situation. He knew that his family was panicking and remembered someone trying to check the windows for him, so he ran for the bunker. Even his dad stayed outside until the last minute before a falling tree cut in between them. It didn't excuse his mistreatment so massively before that incident. Many were ready to forget the family and make sure Lincoln wasn't part of it ever to be treated like that again, but somehow, he had a plan.

'I'm the man with a plan.' he said to them on what felt like the final day to end that chapter of their lives. It was one of those times during a TV show that everything would return to the way it was in the next episode.

It took time—a lot of time. From the day he came back to cool the waters, they had been on thin ice. It took some time for the town to adjust to this, for their friends to come back around and see what both sides of the argument were when Lincoln went to them directly to speak with them. He had every right in the world to bring the hammer down on that ice and watch them fall through while he went somewhere more deserving.

But he stayed, even fighting for them to be left alone. By his 12th birthday, they had hoped things had been mended more as the beginning of that summer had started rocky but went on like they had been a family not on the brink of being torn apart.

From that day forth, they all knew to avoid ever bringing up the topic of bad luck. Even if Lincoln was out of the house or far away, it just didn't sit right. Sure, they said it at times as a reaction, but not to such a harsh meaning anymore.

The person who had started and enforced this all bowed her head—looking away to keep herself from having the image of her brother standing before her so red-faced, ready to disown them all because of her.

"What does that have to do with this?" Lori asked, wanting to step away from the bad memories.

Lisa braced herself, knowing that what she was about to say would borderline give them every right to question everything she knew. She had questioned it so much herself in the past, but stories change in time.

"The incident was triggered by us overwhelming our brother's attention to tend to our events without caring about his thoughts. This eventually boiled over into us collectively thinking he was bad luck whenever something unfortunate happened to us. After the storm and his return, we knew that was just our nefarious hive mentality at work and set out to rectify those mistakes along with those such as the Sister Fight Protocol incident before it."

She took a deep breath, which they all saw as her preparing to deliver something big, which was putting even her on edge.

"What if I told you all; it really was bad luck? Not in that it was his fault for what transpired, but our family as a whole had-ERK!" Her hands reached up, grasping the arm linked to the hand holding her up by the front of her shirt. Everyone froze as Lynn stood holding Lisa high above the bed with only an inch to spare. Her eyes, with little twinkles of tears being held back, looked at her sister, ready to unleash hell on earth.

"Don't..." She seethed, bringing Lisa down so close their noses almost could touch if the scientist wasn't leaning her head back to put some distance. "Don't you… you 'fucking dare' say any of that was true. You said it yourself that crap like luck doesn't exist. It was just young us being stupid and following along with a lie…"

Another hand joined her arm, and the two turned to see Lucy standing there with a portion of her hair brushed away to reveal one of her eyes, begging for her sister to calm down and listen. She would, above all, know what being cast out like that felt like and understand what dealing with things like luck would do to them.

"Lynn… let her explain. There's… so much more than you know." She pleaded. Slowly pulling her hand away and stepping back without breaking contact.

Her sister was a bit off from how the goth reacted, but looking back to Lisa as she glanced back to Lucy, more dots started popping up that were being linked together and going somewhere further than she knew. The two of them both knew something, she understood that violence wasn't the answer to the situation, but she be damned if either suddenly said now that the lies were the truth.

Letting go of the shirt, Lisa fell onto her back on the bed as Lynn retreated to her spot. Crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the wall, trying to think of calming thoughts that wouldn't cause her fuse to burn faster.

"I understand your ire." Lisa said, sitting back up and adjusting her glasses, "And until recently, I fully believed it as hard facts of just being what falls under coincidence. It possibly took me just as long trying to understand the meaning behind this as much as it did trying to find our brother."

Moving back to her computer, she brought up several dozen images and documents, organizing themselves into clusters with dates and some details being highlighted, "To build the bigger picture, I'm sure you all are aware that just before Lincoln's 12th birthday, he had been exhibiting strange changes that were related to weather and photography. Eventually, upon receiving a camera for his birthday, he began to utilize it heavily for personal reasons. It was mostly for simple stuff that even we were a part of for projects, but his most notable was photographing nature itself."

A photo album appeared, slowly cycling through a handful of pictures Lincoln had taken, from a glass of water reflecting sunlight to one of Leni sitting in the backyard in the morning, looking like she was surrounded by magical light.

"At first, I did chalk this up as our brother possibly finding a new avenue to build his skill base. He is an outstanding artist in his ideas and acting, so using the camera possibly became the trifecta of his calling. It wasn't until Lori brought up several points of interest that I began investigating what had changed about Lincoln. The most notable of these was his significant interest in meteorology, mostly that of severe weather, and how by age 14 he had begun displaying these changes from having little to no care of our more usual unusual acts our family often got into."

All eyes looked to Lori when her name was mentioned. The elder sister felt a little unnerved but stood firm in her actions. It was her job being the oldest, to look out for every one of her younger siblings; Lincoln was no expectation. She knew how he operated, and when she saw how much he had changed while she was away. The other might not have known when living with it day after day, but the brother she knew from before was not the same as when she came home.

"In those two years, his focus on education was first thought to be of his mind and even physical attributes maturing from puberty." Ten photos appeared, and two years' worth of change was displayed on five each, from Lincoln being the skinny little brother they knew in their hearts to mature rapidly. His face was squared out, and his muscles were built up. He became as tall as Luna when she was 17, and he was only 14.

It surprised them all how much he had grown in such a short time. Given what Lisa said, they all could remember a multitude of times when the family was going about the craziness they were known for daily. However, while the older sisters had been gradually cycling from the house because of work and school, he had been somewhat more absent than usual. He was almost on par with Lucy, trying to hide but only wanting to be left alone.

After that luck incident, they knew to give him his peace. It didn't mean he outright ignored them; he would still pop in and ask to join or help if whatever was needed, even in some crazier times, but they had grown up enough to know not to drag him against his will like that again.

"It was during these times we failed to see that the seeds of what would become of his future had been planted and were starting to sprout." The display flashed forward a collection of books and documents covering the scope of meteorology, photography, and, oddly, engineering. Dozens of documentaries from almost 40 years ago with weather videos from 'recently' to just as far back.

"Lincoln wasn't focused on getting good grades and trying to distance himself from our chaos, but was preparing himself to become the storm chaser we know him as now."

Another set of photos appeared, showing a 16-year-old Lincoln standing in the driveway with their dad on the day he had gone to get his driver's license and was officially given Vanzilla.

They remembered this time like anyone else living in the early 2020s would. They felt like the year before was the last time anyone got to experience normal until the whole world went down the toilet, and even now, some were still struggling to process the idea of what had happened. They were in a tight situation like anyone else for money once the restaurant had to be closed for some time, and within three days of getting the car keys, Lincoln went and chased down his first tornado on his own.

Getting so close to one on live television, they were all screaming at him not to do it, thinking he had completely lost it and was ready to drive to his death. They didn't believe in the day it took for him to come back; he'd shown them that check that had basically kept the family afloat through all the hell the first half of the decade would throw their way.

"For the rest of the year and next, he'd actively chase whatever weather setup that had potential was close by. Spending significant amounts of time away from home, sometimes accompanied by Clyde, until the day when he-"

"OKAY! Can we seriously stop bringing up all the bad times we seriously fucked him over because of us being selfish people?" Luna yelled, already seeing where she was going next.

So Lisa decided to skip ahead a little, "Next came the reality of it all; this is where the balance between what I had thought was a coincidence was actually connected. It wasn't until Lincoln started gaining massive success in the previous two years that I started seeing a connection to us. While he sent us the checks with increasing value over time, his biggest successes became highlights of his career that occurred during times we suffered serious incidents."

"Wait…. Wait a minute…" Luan shook her head. You're telling us that… every time Lincoln did something big, the opposite would happen to us?" She nearly lost her voice from the disbelief it evoked.

"It's… not as solid as some other aspects of this, but it's the best I've been able to develop. I haven't been able to properly estimate what constitutes a positive or a negative for either side, given we had been relatively stable in terms of our lives, unlike before."

"So… the reason why all that stuff happened to us... was because of him?" Lana struggled to say, holding onto her twin. Lola had to reach behind the wall to keep herself upright, and her legs felt ready to give out. The looks on Lynn, Lori, and Luna both dropped, flashes of them living the time of their lives, building up their futures. Leni broke into tears and slumped against the wall until the floor stopped her. Despite the tears she tried to wipe away, her eyes looked like the light had been drained from her soul. Trying to think straight enough about why her beloved little brother would do such a thing to her. To all of them.

Lola looked ready to combust; the past urge following her disaster inferno fueled the idea that it was his fault even though he wasn't there. He felt more justified than ever. Luan crouched down and brought the twins into a tight embrace, especially Lola, knowing that her fate was brought on by trying to save her. She still didn't regret that day, but it was becoming damned hard not to think of what could have happened to herself if it was only her that affected everyone else.

But out of them, Lisa and Lucy stood unnerved. Knowing fully that this was to come, it didn't stop the goth from instinctively rubbing her wrists. Yet Luna and Lily were silent.

Lily was smart. She knew things happen because they happen; sometimes, it's something else at a different time and place. She understood that all of this wasn't his fault. He had no power over what ignited or twisted in the wrong spot. Anyone could get an infection and fight it off in time, but that was what happened to them, and she knew he didn't do it out of hate or revenge. He'd set the world on fire with him at the center if he knew that all the pain brought on was done willingly.

He might not have known that with all his success living his life, it really had the power to affect them. Yet it didn't stop him from still being there for them even when he wasn't.

And for Luna… it was like standing on a bridge with a crazy archeologist about to cut the rope, and you had no idea which direction both halves would go. She knew back when her hearing went out that it was because of years of her habits catching up to her. Some people could go through a single moment and be deaf for life. Hers only took its sweet time until it finally got overwhelming.

Did she blame Lincoln for that?

No, no, she didn't. In the time it took for her ears to bleed, they were both living their lives on the road. He chased, she rocked. Their family and lives went on as usual. When Lori came home, they believed it was, for a better lack of words, a twist of fate. Everything that followed…

She blamed him for not being there and being home when it would have mattered more to them than a piece of paper. She knew to a degree he was working his butt off to not only keep himself stable when the country was circling the bowl but to help them. If what he did caused all this pain, then why didn't it start before he…

Wait…

"It's both a yes and no…with a large gap in between." Lisa continued, "I've been able to account for some events that align with this theory, but there isn't enough data to properly develop a solid answer."

"W-wait a second," the rocker stuttered, getting everyone's attention to her, "So if he succeeds, we get hurt and vice versa… when did it start?"

"That I am unsure of," Lisa answered, wiping the display clean and bringing up several lodges and reports dating from 2019 to 2021. Given the complications brought within just a two-year period, I would have suspected that once he had officially left Royal Woods to live independently, it most likely could have been triggered."

"What if… what if it started earlier?" That got Lisa's attention more as she turned around to face Luna, "All the stuff that we did to him… what if we started it all?"

"...elaborate," she said, curious to see where Luna was going.

"Just-just think of it!" Luna exclaimed, standing in the middle of the room, looking back and forth to everyone. "Sure, there were all the times it was just a sibling thing, but what about all the times we practically degraded him? Have we treated him more like a servant than our brother? Before the bad luck thing, we were riding high; then that happened, and the squirrel suit came. All of that success brought from that 'good luck charm' of a suit, we literally boarded up in his room for weeks, and sure, we let him change our clothes and get a shower, but we were practically killing him in that thing! He still had it within his heart to care about us, not suffer the consequences of our actions. For Christ's sake, he pretty much took the blame for it to spare us from the worst… is it even worth saying it's not karna for us to go through hell when he's enjoying his life away from us when we made it hell living with us?"

The room was silent again, save for Luna falling onto the bed beside Lisa, trying to catch her breath. All of them stuck things over how it all fit together. They made his life hell for years and rode high, leaving him in the shadows. It was only fitting that he left them behind and suffered the same fate.

"It's… possible that is the case." Lisa pondered, looking back up to the projection as reports from 2016 joined in. "It lines up with some elements we've known from both the Duke and his descendant, albeit there's what the lead-up and aftermath had caused."

"Then what did we do to cause him to almost die in that super twister?" they heard Lily ask.

"That… I… I don't know." Lisa confessed, feeling the phantom pain of countless sleepless nights spent trying to answer that and a hundred other questions.

"I've tried understanding what could have happened to result in that storm… If the pattern is partially true, then once Lincoln sent that letter and check, the Oklahoma City disaster unfolded a short time later. It affected a city but not him directly. I haven't figured out if that was considered a plus or minus for us. Only I know that after his 20th birthday, our actions will not affect him..."

"What do you mean by that?" Lori asked nervously.

Before her answer was given, another file, titled 'KM-2525', appeared. Unleashing hundreds of files, labeled as 'Change 1', went into the hundreds and thousands.

"I've run at least 7,000 scenarios for the entire day of that storm. Changing but a single element from everything from the thermodynamics, storm motion, humidity, and location offset by over 50 miles, him waking up early or late if his vehicle had broken down or couldn't be fixed in time. How an hour, 30 minutes, even 30 seconds in one spot or another could have changed the outcome…"

The files were reorganized from numerical order to a list of the results. A lot of green text slowly changes to red, and a handful goes so far as to be black. "Out of those 7000, over 4680 resulted in him staying safely out of range from the twister or storm itself. Five hundred forty had him still attempting an intercept at some point during the storm's life cycle; another 330 had him even chasing the tornadoes that formed afterward. Six hundred had him unable to chase due to either mechanical failures or being out of position. And of the last 700, 620 had him still attempting his original intercept at the same time of his arrival on the scene. Only it varied between his choice of deployment location and if or when he chose to relocate or lockdown."

"... and the last 80?" Someone murmured, too quiet for them to turn in time to see who said it.

Lisa typed in a command, and the 80 in question appeared. Though the same color, they all flash slightly different results. Some had 'Trapped in Debris Field,' others had 'RoadBlock' to whatever that meant. And for six, 'CoreLofted' stood out.

Rereading the simplified results, Lisa felt a migraine threatening her. Watching these simulations play out sometimes made her pull her hair out. It was like how you can get a hundred storms, only ten of those could become supercells and only one of those could even try to produce a twister. The odds that Lincoln's choices that day and what he did with the situation led to what did happen was a fraction of a fraction chance. Some of these were based on changes of all she inputted but were done within the timeframe of Lincoln making the turn and Shrieker being stuck.

She remembered having to rewatch every video she could find frame by frame to estimate what happened and what could have been changed. Had Lincoln decided to undeploy 30 seconds later, that subvortice that took the house next to them could have sent all that debris at them and possibly snapped the outriggers. No anchoring in 250-plus concentrated winds would have been well enough to send that 9-ton truck rolling through the fields. If they hadn't executed the 180 turn 30 seconds later, they would have been engulfed in the leading edge of the primary funnel. They would still have been forced off the road by the impact of wind or debris. If they didn't roll and tried to redeploy, they would have even less time to drop the undershields before being consumed. At that point, too much uplift would be getting under the chassis, and by the time they'd even reach the outer core…

Nothing is surviving a 300 mph wind…

"Do you recall our visit to Loch Loud back in 2017? Discovering our royal ancestry and family's connection from Royal Woods to what drove our ancestors from their home?" Lisa asked, feeling it was time to get to the crux of this.

They all nodded, remembering how, from the start, Lincoln's idea was to dig through the family tree to discover that they had royal blood. It wasn't the best family vacation in our state; their second trip to Europe a year later was marginally far better, and the cross-country road trip had… highs and lows. However, most of it didn't involve dealing with a real-life dragon.

"And nearly getting killed by a mind-controlled dragon…" Lola shivered. Remembering how that was probably the closest she had been to actually being burned alive before all this...

"Saved by a burrito and magic tricks…" Lynn muttered, not believing her brother had devised a crazy plan to keep the dragon from killing them all long enough for Lily to swap the gemstone. They were mortified when they were pushed over the cliff, and only the dragon to save them.

"*ahem*" Lisa loudly cleared her throat to stay on track. "Anyways, I had visited the location under disguise sometime later, hoping to discover more of what had transpired. I discovered some texts that described what the family was like before they were forced out and that 'Aggie' had placed more surprise for our family than I had wished it did."

She turned to Lucy, knowing this was now her department of expertise. All that she had said so far was backed up with hard science and numbers, but when it came to talking about bad luck actually being real, she could easily tell her credibility had dropped a level right then and there.

"The Curse of the Silence. A fitting name for a family like us…" Lucy announced, surprising some of them, as she went to join Lisa's opposite side. The scientist cleared the files and brought up photos and scans of heavily aged pages, which were so worn down that some thought they were just coffee stains.

"Such a spell is so complex, even our great grandmother Harriet and those before her who had the spell book it was said to have been cast from couldn't find more about what it was and how to stop it. Lisa had asked me early in her investigation to attempt to contact one of our family spirits. Possibly, our ancestors we met in Scotland, but instead, the only one I could communicate with was our grandfather's grandfather and our brother's direct predecessor."

The images cycled over to faded paintings, one set of the worn-out original and the other of attempts at restoration and fill-in-the-blanks. It wasn't just the family of 13, with the parents in the middle flanked by five daughters on either side and the son in the middle; what Lisa had come to find out were aunts and uncles to the father along with his parents brought the number closer to 35 people sitting on either a dead grassy hill or staircase. Another image shifted to only have the 13 themselves, all dressed with mono colors that were broken with pops of brighter choices.

Then, self-portraits, all having much greater details that make them stand out so much that sisters felt they were looking more at themselves dressed for a colonial reenactment with some changes here and there. It surprised them more to see the fact that while having 'doubles in the past' was something you'd think of from a movie or show as a plot element, forgotten people in modern times often did look like someone in the past, on rare times actually being related to that person.

Then Lisa presented the brother's portrait or portraits. The two side by side were a stark contrast.

The first, of him as a child, was incomplete. Where on a blue background, the shape of the head, the flow of hair, and the upper shirt were there, the eyes were uncolored, the face devoid of expression—the second had a much older man, the only real colors being a light gray to depict the hair and a very bright blue for the eyes. The face was calm but didn't look relaxed. There was more detail to the skin with imperfections around the neck and cheeks like scars.

"We haven't been able to find a first name given medical records back then that were lost to time, which were spotty at best. From what we know, after combing through Royal Wood's archives after our ancestors had fled Scotland and migrated to America before the revolution, they went deeper into the midwest to where Royal Woods would later be founded. The natives forced them out and eventually drifted apart for a few generations until what became the tenth generation afterward came to be."

As Lisa flipped it back to the book, Lucy continued, "Given the stories of what had happened to the Duke were still widely known in the family, they believed that he, as the middle child and directly descended to the Duke, was a cursed child. In the years following, the family, mostly the sisters, would see a high social reputation despite the social standards of the day, with the brother often being regarded as just the middle or forgotten child. For his part, he would come into contact with the Duke, who would explain to him in detail what had transpired over the decade he was still alive. He had fathered almost a dozen offspring before his death so that that family name wouldn't die out, and this descendant was now next in line."

"Talk about Grandpa getting busy…" Luan quipped, making Luna and Lori shake their heads, and some others blush, given that the person looked all too familiar to someone very close.

"It was through these eleven offspring that eventually led to the next tenth mark, and our ancestor took it upon himself to find a way to break it. Because of his actions and prior beliefs, the Loud family had been fractured to the point all the sisters had renounced the family. The royal family didn't know about the curse until it was already too late. Their descendants only spoke of it in tales until the Duke himself discovered it and tried to warn people, our grandfather, to try to break it, and he failed and left nothing behind to tell anyone what he did to do it."

"We know that there is a pattern; the trend for both going from stable youth to a discorded upbringing until a significant event triggers a massive change in the family themselves. The events that lead to their death just after turning 20 in age varied, but it was often started from broken family relations and siring a large pool of offspring before passing that has led to us…"

Pulling up a family tree that followed their father's side, a blue line merged that can from eight different points over 600 years ago to the parents of the royal family, the 11 children, and then a massive branch off of 26 more, 11 from just the Duke himself with unknown spouses, and the rest of children from the sisters' own lines. There was a brief spike up to seven from the middle child, and then for the following eight generations, it was primarily tame, with other lines joining in to form other branches.

Regarding the second family, there was another jump to 11, but the overall count was under 20. Again, there were more questions, and no names were marked for the mothers. The line continued until they reached their great-grandmother Harriet, Grandpa Leonard, their dad, and then them. "By every point in the generational lineage, from fathers and offspring, we are the next generational mark for the curse, and Lincoln is the center of it."

The blue line stopped, and a picture of 12-year-old Lincoln Loud stood circled in red as one of only three.

The ten stared at the image, trying to process the onslaught of information the two had dumped on them all. The two fired off each other so quickly that it felt rehearsed, only fueled the flame of wondering how long the two of them had known about this and neglected to say anything. At points, some were ready to jump in and point out something, but the two just kept dumping more and more, which built higher than they could imagine.

"But… Why him?" Leni asked solemnly, trying to understand how everything was tied to her brother dying.

"I don't know," Lisa said grimly, feeling it was the only answer she knew anymore.

Only the events that have happened for the previous two families have already happened to us. Not exactly one for one, but to some degree. I can guess that the build-up occurred before the bad luck incident, which caused the cracks in our family to split. If him taking a part of the blame was to try to fix them, leaving on his own unknowingly caused something else. The tornado might have been the equivalent of being forced from the homeland, and as much as it pains me to say it, I fully believe Lincoln was supposed to die that day chasing Kingman… The situation was practically built for him not to survive, yet… he again defies the odds…"

She chuckled darkly, seeing the irony that both sides of luck were fighting for him simultaneously.

"Yet if history shows that day is inevitable, even if the route to it is different, there are only two possible options that will lead to the end… Either he lives past 21 or dies and ends his bloodline..."

That sentence, built with the tone that Lisa had spoken as if it were a mathematical certainty for the two outcomes, made them sit or stand there in silence, which took away any other thoughts they had brewing. There were a lot of things in life that were just out of your hands. Things will happen regardless of whether you are there to watch or try to change what will happen, even if it is in times when you have no idea what it is that would result in your actions.

Lori understood this quite well after the last 20 years. She was the first among them to be here in this world to welcome every sibling that came through that door and stood as that guardian who was to look over every one of them. There were plenty of times they got in her way of things, made a mess that she had to clean up, or got on her nerves so badly she wanted to and, at times, did explode on them. She was childish like any of them at times; that's youth for you, but being first in line to walk out that door when others had a long way to go helped her realize things couldn't stay the same forever.

She remembered how back in May, when she flipped through those old photo albums, all the memories that she saw with her were sometimes gone for so long, popping back in for events or just visiting but always coming back. Then, when there were photos of Grandma Harriet, Pop-Pop, Grandpa Leonard, and others here and there, they became absent from one point onwards. It took a long time for them all to adjust to loss, and she was someone there for others to have a shoulder to cry on when they needed it.

But when she needed it, the options were sometimes few and far between. In this household, there was always one person just down the hallway willing to stay up all night at his own expense…

… How lucky they were that all but one of the photo albums had survived, and that was the one they had yet to start putting together truly. The seventh youngest might have already been an adult now, but there was still so much time left for the others to make plenty of memories together.

The oldest might have been off living somewhere, but there was always the comfort that they were a phone call away and would be on the first flight back home if anything were to happen. They knew that one day, there wouldn't be a grandma or grandpa anymore; that was life. They dreaded the day that it would come, and every day it didn't; they prayed for there to be one more. Just one more day after the next, so that next day could be filled with the memory that in that time you could go to them, see the life in their eyes and the smile on their face.

For four years, that hadn't felt any different than when their brother had left, yet they always knew he was living his life every day they woke up. It was a bit more dangerous than anything they would have done on the extreme end of their spectrums, but it was the thought that he was still out there and one day would return. Within days of them wanting to throw him a party for joining the 20 Club, he could have easily left this world in the blink of an eye, like a decade ago...

Once, she had willingly done things that almost had caused her to lose him forever. He had forgiven her, and she promised to do whatever was necessary to ensure it never happened again. She was limited to what she could do here, but to know that every little action she did pushed him one step closer and closer… like she had failed to protect him…

She loved her brother too much to let that be. What kind of big sister was she to let that kind of torture, to know he was practically torn apart that day and was in pain for so much longer than any one of them knew he was fighting it alone. He had to have known; he wouldn't have randomly given them his will if he didn't expect to leave them so soon…

No… no, she won't let him leave them so soon. She'll tear apart every mile that divided them to ensure he returned home to them.

Countless times, he had sacrificed too much for them. More than any more should have to for his family. He nearly died because of them, and yet after that, he willingly gave it up to protect them and let them escape. He gave them his one last time, and he knew that. He was out there somewhere at the risk of god knows what while they were stuck here waiting for when he'd…

'No. No more sacrifices.'

It echoed in her mind like it was an empty warehouse. But with her standing in the middle, that echo quickly faded, and new voices of thoughts and ideas sprouted everywhere like towers all around her.

She had a chance to make sure he didn't have to do this anymore. If it were inevitable, then she'd make sure that every day was one they shared that he could say was why life was worth living for. If they can find some way to stop it… she'll never leave his side again.

The same could be said for the one sitting on the ground next to her. Her legs were hugged close to her chest, and she stared at some random patch of carpet, with trails of tears mixed with running makeup. One look would make someone think that she had suddenly turned to stone.

A hollow look in Leni's eyes felt like they were emitting an empty cold. The world had tainted the innocence of a being after so many times beating down the gates and finally breaking through.

Despite being the second oldest and slow to understand some things, she was someone who understood that sometimes things weren't as bright as she had hoped for or saw in her view. She would cry the hardest at times, enough to pass out and wake up later and forget about it, until she started wondering why this person didn't visit for so long or why they never talked to someone else. A lot of times, they all swept it under the rug for her sake, and a few of the closer ones that they couldn't hide sat her down and explained like they had died twice.

She would cry for days, mourning the fact that someone she would share a tight hug and talk about all her ideas and sit and listen to what events they had to share with her. Sometimes, she went overboard; sometimes, she didn't stop like a runaway train, but when someone was there actually to listen and not wave her off, she remembered all those moments with the best memories she had. Her Linky was just that.

Not some plastic statue without a face or voice, but someone she felt was probably the closest sibling to her next to Lori, who really did understand her (unlike Lisa's view) and took the time to actually be by her side and walk her through hand in hand.

To lose him… not like that day years ago or that morning, but to never have the chance to see him face to face, that bright smile that could brighten up the night, a voice that could reassure her in times that looked bleak and hold her close enough to hear the beating of his heart… All those times rocking him to sleep when he could barely register the world around him, watching his first steps taken across the living room floor, being her assistant in growing her ideas and dreams of fashion… there was when she knew she annoyed him, unknowingly or not.

But out of everyone… if her parents were at work, the young ones with friends, or the older ones busy with either, and she was just left at home to her thoughts… he was there. The house felt emptier without him when he was out doing who knows what, and it worried her every time he came home exhausted or on the verge of tears.

She'd do whatever she could to make them comfortable if it were just the two of them. Just the two of them alone without caring for the world beyond those walls. Together, they just felt that they were side by side, and sometimes, with their sides together, they used one or the other for support until the chaos of the family came knocking back.

All of those times felt too few and far between when she tried to remember. When was the last time she could wrap her arms around him? Give him a quick smooch on the cheek, no matter how embarrassed. How long was it all…

And for there to never be a chance to feel that all again… she didn't know; she didn't WANT to know what that would feel like. To know she'd never feel his heart beat with hers again on this planet as she'd be there with others, having to watch him be lowered down and look to the sky, hoping he was with those she remembered…

No… no there was… there was still something she could do—the suit.

Out of all the stuff that had been pulled free from the remains of the house, some of her work had been damaged to the point there was a chance to salvage it, but the suit, even if it wasn't finished, survived. It was beaten up and torn in some spots, but it was because it wasn't finished. She didn't want to make a suit meant to continue his torture… or just look stylish; she wanted to create something she would be proud of. Something that her brother would put on with the promise of her craft, keeping him safe when she couldn't.

It had been sitting in a box with some other stuff for some time. She could count the days until Lincoln's next birthday like it was glued to the back of her brain; it wouldn't take long to finish it, but the design wasn't strong enough. This was an oddly perfect opportunity to see what it could withstand and where she needed to improve.

Standing up from the floor and wiping away her tears, several ideas began to whirl around her mind about what she could do. Her Linky was the knight to her as his princess (sorry, Lola); he had a steedy to ride into battle and a stallion to carry them home. What was a knight without his shining armor to keep him safe to return from war so she could remove that battered helmet, look into those blue eyes as they reunited after so long…

But Luna knew that could have been so, so much sooner. Realization senses that you thought you were so far away from a goal, only for it to be taken away and be shown that you were already inches away from achieving it even when you didn't know and were further away from it than ever.

She was the last one to see him. After that debacle, after they knew he had staked his claim, just two years after she got to see him grow into the adult that would shape his future… a future that was within arms reach but getting further away…

All this time, 'she was right there'.

Right there, in the same room a dozen plus times. All of those opportunities to try harder, to do more, to change something that would have made what she heard now feel more like a bad dream that felt too real, and she was fighting herself to wake up. She could have… she should have…

There were plenty of chances for her to bring him back. They knew where he was now, but she could have visited him—gone with or to him to see the life he had spent his time building up. He was there for her arguably more than anyone else in this room, and she owed it to him from the earlier years, even when he started to drift away…

Now that she thought about it… If Lori had noticed all the way back then from seeing how things changed on a nearly weekly basis, she should have seen it when he visited her events. It was weeks and months between years later, but she was so caught up in the thrill she had failed to see what changes his being away from the family had made. Lori said she often felt homesick and a bit weary when on the road, and she came back home sometimes to crash for a bit before rolling out again.

All those days of intense thrill made her feel alive… dying.

Her mind jumped from the top of a bookshelf to the overhead light and nearly felt the cable snap when the memory of what that out-of-nowhere phone call had done to her.

Hearing Sam's voice after all that hell, trying to see her family as the doctors worked to save them, all she could do was sit in a chair out in the hallway and wait for good or bad news. When that call came in, she wasn't prepared to hear a voice that she could fall asleep next to and wished was right beside her. Running off to a secluded spot to talk felt like a gut punch, and yet, the saving grace was hearing that she had been caught in another storm and survived.

It hurt to think of what could have happened. The first call was too brief for her to get any idea except that something had… happened to Lincoln again… It was like Sam had cried murder Lincoln's name before Luna tried, again and again, to get through until the line went dead.

She had fallen out of her seat and begged on the floor for her to answer. To let her hear her voice again. To know everything was alright until she was found passed out on the floor by Lori an hour later. It took a minute longer to regain her memory of what happened, only to collapse into her arms and ball out again. She was stuck like that for hours; it took her and Leni to get her into a taxi to get to the hotel they were being placed in, along with other displaced families. She only slept that night and the two afterward out of pure mental and physical exhaustion.

Maybe it was for the best…. It was the kind of sleep you could feel, with your eyes closed, the darkness behind you as your only company, and any sliver of a dream or nightmare unable to lock into your brain.

When the second call came through… her world felt a bit brighter, but it was as cold as the snow that was coming down.

Sam explained in detail what had happened. Her day, the tornado, going airborne… her brother, and what happened from the first day to when he had left shortly before she called. It made her feel more useless than before, just picturing her little rockstar suffering like his life was being ripped out of him…

And he was going back for more…

She explained that some fire was in his eyes; it had been flickering when she had met him again, but after his… incident… it had been growing again. He was again acting like his old self, the one they all remembered and loved…

He had been hurting for too long. Trying to 'protect them,' as Sam described, from what? She could only guess it was from this curse or whatever it was. They needed to bring him home, get him as far away from that land as possible, and protect him like the sisters they were supposed to be. She had failed so many days before and felt like she had betrayed herself too often, and that blood was being shed for something they didn't deserve.

They needed him home.

She needed him home… Wrapped in her arms so he couldn't leave anymore. So they both could sing that little melody together again…

To hear him laugh again…

Seeing that smile and hearing that voice laugh with her whenever everyone else turned away and groaned was there to help build her confidence when it felt like her world was becoming less colorful…

But Luan felt that something was off about all this.

She… vaguely remembered what happened back in the school when the storm hit. How the air was sucked away so quickly you didn't have enough to take in and scream out your lungs. The world was gray, dusty, and loud, and all you could do was hang on and wait until it was over…

That wall should have crushed them, but it didn't. She knew she didn't have the raw muscle strength like Lynn or Lori or the hidden powers like Leni. Compared to the others, she was probably behind Luna, and Lana, of all people, outdid her. She had heard of plenty of times people getting that sudden burst of inhuman strength, that extra jolt and spark to get all the pistons working as one to survive.

But that… she was getting knocked down by the winds blowing through the hallway to stand upright anymore. The weight was bearing down on her faster than she could keep it up. Then it felt like… she wasn't alone.

The walls were coming down on them, but she wasn't standing alone. Even when debris hurt her arm, and she felt ready to give, someone was still by her side, bracing the weight. She didn't see anyone else standing up once that wind kicked in, and over the sound, her voice and scream were as useless as a cup of water on the ocean.

The wall still gave out, but in the direction that kept them from becoming trapped. Anyone still in the hallway who wasn't trapped crawled their way out and tried to free others, but they were in too deep. The ceiling was inches above their heads, and the hallways were caved in. It was too dark to see, and the air was so dusty that it was hard to catch her breath without it stinging from whatever was in the air.

She could feel Lily, but every call was unanswered. She felt in the dark to make sure her little sister was still there and breathing, and could only wait and hope rescue was on the way.

But it didn't feel like she was alone.

Even from hearing all the voices and tools cutting paths to them, as she screamed out where they were to guide them, that feeling didn't leave the entire time.

Until later, she thought it was her brother watching over her. Watching over both of them, all of them. Making sure that they knew they weren't alone…

Out there facing death and destruction, she's seen the work he's done and how his simple actions, giving people the first steps to rebuilding their lives, probably turned the frowns of thousands into smiles of jubilance. It made her so happy that her little brother, whom she would be there to try to cheer him up and see that smile again, was doing the same for many.

But thinking of how many times it could've gone wrong… all the pranks in the past that were to make herself laugh at the suffering and humiliation of her family to their folly, she needed a big slap of reality to realize that went against what making people laugh was about, and she changed that in time. Sure, she let up the scale and frequency but refined what she did. And often, a lot of it was directed towards him.

Looking back, it was a challenge she took in stride. With every prank Lincoln side-stepped, she prepared something bigger. There were times of success, yet she was pretty sure that along with Lynn keeping him physically active, she was inadvertently helping to hone his reaction time.

She never meant to ever bring harm of any kind to him… She had dedicated her whole life to making people smile and have a good laugh in life. What was it to live without having that burst of joy that sometimes all it takes was a good joke or action to change someone's day?

But what kind of sick, twisted joke was this? Where was the punchline meant to make everyone laugh? Where was any joy meant to be brought with it being shared with others…

Her pranks got dangerously close, but this wasn't something that toning it down or swapping a pitfall into the washing machine for being wrangled into the couch springs and getting pied in the face could replace. This was her brother unwillingly, or willingly, she couldn't tell with him anymore, going headlong into a trap that ends with no life, no giggle or chuckle except the crying at a funeral if they could even have one.

He barely survived that last storm, he could have been swept away high into the sky the first time and never touch the earth again.

The world could live on without a single person, but how could they? How can they live knowing that it was because of them he didn't get to see the life they saw? These few years hadn't been kind to them, but they had decades more to make up for it while he had maybe months at most. Perhaps even just weeks or days left…

Pulling the twins closer, she couldn't imagine a world where she couldn't hold him anymore….

She had to stay strong. They all had to be strong...

Lynn had to stay strong, but she was like a 200-year-old log cabin drier than sand, with a tiny ember ready to send the entire place up faster than a bolt of lightning could do the job. Just strike the match a mile away, and everything would go.

Her fingers dug into her arm so hard it was red, with cuts beginning to form. Teeth grinding together with eyes closed tightly and head hung low. Twitching side to side as if she was having a vivid dream she was fighting against.

That's what this all was… a dream. A really realistic bad dream that had spanned over ten years of her life, and at any moment, she was about to wake up in her bed as her old 13-year-old self, thinking how crazy everything spiraled out from three words and that maybe toned down the luck massively… When she opens her eyes, she'll realize she just passed out at a sibling meeting discussing after-school stuff…

When her teeth started aching, and she instinctively brought a hand up to cup her jaw to rub it, her eyes opened to reveal that line of thinking was a dream by itself. Seeing all her sisters' faces and their eyes, she could see that they weren't crying or staring off into space; she could see that war was going on in them.

But for her, the war had been going on for years, with both sides now fighting for the same reason.

How.

Just… how could this be happening?

That day… the one day she was being the utter sore loser looking for something to vent all her frustration, her brother, who she'd beat the crap out of anyone if they threatened him, was the only target she could think of.

How was it possible that, in any chance of their lives, she was right? No, she wasn't right. It was just ironic, a coincidence.

Before all that, her brother had gone through his own troubles and fought in his own way to victory. Where something failed, he changed his plan to what was needed. She was stuck in the mindset that anything she did wasn't wrong—that it was the problem, not her solution. If the problem succeeded, it wasn't because of her; it was the problem of getting lucky, and she needed better luck to keep any of the bad away from her.

Now she saw it, it made her laugh.

He was bad luck, but their entire family made him out to be.

If she weren't born, there wouldn't be an odd number of siblings, no middle child for luck to latch onto and splinter out everywhere. If he weren't born… the world wouldn't be the same...

All the times she was putting him down, trying to toughen him up for the real world out there, she did it so that when the time came that she wasn't there for him, he could stand on his own.

She didn't think that from day one, the world was already waiting for him. Every step he took here was one more step closer to that grand finale, and in three words, believing her own twisted beliefs and ideals, she had pushed him closer to that finale than the world did.

He stood alone that day… and should have had to.

She looked out the window, assuming he was already running for the bunker. She could have just thrown the door open and pulled him in, but no, she wasn't thinking straight. She could have seen all the pain this charade was causing and actually been a big sister and not let it get to that point.

She understood the feeling behind that punch, knowing how fucked up everything was because she said those three words. For years, she thought of what she could have done differently instead of following some stupid superstition…

But to be told outright that wh5at she said that day was actually true…

If the headache that was keeping her pinned in place wasn't so powerful right now, she would be screaming with every ounce of her soul poured into it. Smash everything that dared remind her of that time, she basically lost the right to be called his big sister and taunted at how, a decade later, she had done to fix it.

'What exactly?'

Think of everything done until the last time he was in that house and see how he came to her to prepare himself. All being one step further from splitting apart, and what did she do in all that time…?

Those checks that practically funded her college life were just reminders that after the first two months, she didn't bat an eye. She was on track to fulfilling her dreams of the back of his gift…

It was luck that the tackle hit the one-million-dollar spot to put her down permanently. Call that unlucky as is, but it felt like karma had finally chosen its time to strike her down, and yet her brother was 'there' to get not just her but the whole family rolling again. It was something entirely out of their control….

No. No, they do have control, no matter how small it is. Sometimes, all it took was one small action to cause a massive reaction. They had all seen and lived it. If Lisa meant that anything they achieved reflected negatively on him as it worked before, then now they weren't tied to it anymore. Whatever success or failure they get now won't do jack to Lincoln and vice versa, but that didn't mean they couldn't be there so that he could still succeed.

It was because of her stupid actions that started this mess even if it was whatever the hell kind of sick joke the universe was trying to pull. Because of them, he was risking it all to keep them away from that storm he was about to stand alone in again.

Not this time.

He wasn't going to stand and fight this alone. Even if by some way she can get this fucked up curse off him or… or be there for the fight so he's not standing alone anymore…

She was Lynn Loud, and she'd damn anyone who thinks they can stand in the way of her Lincoln…

"Okay…" Lori spoke up first. Switching gears to put herself out of the dark and gloom into big sister looking out for her brother mode, "So, how do 'we' break this curse?"

"We can't," Lisa answered with a flat tone. "That's an avenue I've been looking down every day since his birthday, and I have a few ideas to mitigate possibilities, but this nature leads to the same two outcomes."

"Bullshit." Lynn stated, tossing her arms in the air, "All that, and you have no idea if there's even a way to get him out of this thing without killing him?"

Like Jekyll and Hyde tied into one, Lisa looked back at her and had her blunt science next to her distress as a sibling. "If I had known what it was, we wouldn't be sitting in this trailer with our brother out there in the crosshairs waiting for God to strike him down when he feels like it! " She shouted at the athlete, surprising her with the raw frustration and anger in her eyes.

"We are in completely uncharted territory. Where the road ended for everyone else, we've reached the point where there isn't even a hiking trail going past it. Any direction we go could lead us to the promised lands or a thousand-foot drop. I've been so focused on finding him before anything else significant can happen. The will given to us alone is a massive red flag for what is coming."

At the mention of the will, Lori's eyes flashed wide, "How do you know about that?!" she shouted, baffled by how Lisa could have known… But she had to remind herself that this was Lisa. This like this didn't stay secret from her for very long….

"When reviewing our records to recover, I came across the document. After my first read, I had come to reconsider that our brother's brief stop back in November was not just for a welfare check," Lisa looked to Lori for a split second as a map display popped up. On the search, a quick type of 'El Reno' launched it towards the town with a pinged marker a few miles north of the city.

"The papers our father had been given retained heavily detailed instructions should our brother pass. It had details of the property he currently owns. Of which is the farm and surrounding land it's part of. Though I must ask,"

Lisa paused, shifting around to face her oldest sibling directly. "How do you know of it? The instructions stated that only a living parent should know the details. Only when neither is alive would it be passed to the next oldest living relative, which would be you in most circumstances? However, I know our parental units are currently still breathing."

All eyes looked to Lori, and Loud regretted bringing that up as she described the puzzled and surprised looks on their faces.

"*sigh* After Dad and I returned to the restaurant that morning, he showed me everything. I only looked through some of it, but the part he looked at was about the farm. He had the idea that maybe, either for the holidays or when we could, take a family trip down to him. Given this time of year, we figured he'd be at home more than traveling. But after that, going anywhere was literally out of the question."

"He was still in Nashville after it," Luna spoke up, making the room reach a new level of silence that made everyone's thoughts even stop.

"You saw the reports?" Lisa asked.

But Luna shook her head, "Sam called me the day after from an old number. Told me he was staying at her place for a time after he brought her back from the hospital. She wanted to know what happened, and I told her about the storm here… She… didn't finish what she was saying until she screamed Lincoln's name and dropped the phone…"

Luna's voice dropped into a quiver. "… I tried calling back, but there wasn't any response." Taking a step forward, she spun around to sit herself on the foot of the bed. "She… didn't call back for a couple of days to explain what happened…"

"And what happened?" Lisa asked, turning to face her.

Luna didn't break down into a full cry, but it didn't stop from trying to keep the flow on low. "He… he wasn't himself. When she met him the day after, she said he looked so tired. And that was after he said he fell asleep in his truck for half the day after the storm. When Sam brought him in, he tried distracting himself with his work but ended up discovering what happened to Royal Woods and us."

It took a second to click, but the grim looks on everyone were compounded by the idea of what Lincoln had to be thinking. Knowing the hell they went through just hours after he left in such a hurry that they were home, he had briefly visited for minutes after years were gone. They had the 'luxury' of actually being home and with others for years, for whatever caused him to come home when he did, it was either like the universe was erasing his reasons or was rubbing salt into a reopened wound.

"He… he completely went out of it." Luna continued, "Sam said she physically had to jump on him to stop him from leaving right then and there. Kept muttering he needed… needed to protect us."

Lisa sat silently, combing over this new information and feeling there was something she had overlooked.

She had been so heavily focused on his physical being that she had forgotten to consider how much his mental being had changed. If he was taking steps to prepare his will so far in advance, risking traveling solo and getting so close to intercepting something she calculated was again beyond what he could enter, he was making arguably reckless decisions if his physical health had yet to improve enough.

She could see what was causing some of this; he couldn't stay put when everything else moved on. There had been plenty of missed chances between Kingman and the 10th, and, understandably, he was becoming restless in getting back into the field to make up for lost time. But to go so far as having a breakdown of that intensity and essentially revert back to how he was back home when not focused on the weather… Lisa considered it could be a case of bipolar disorder, but without directly observing and more details, that question was left blank.

Part of her was very interested in interviewing Sam. She understood he had a connection up here through one of his friends, possibly more, but Sam had been a close figure who seemed to bridge a tighter gap between him and them. His interactions during the past with her and Luna were the most up-to-date encounters between family members….

There was a connection.

At least from the perspective that Luna was arguably the last among them to see him. She had the last chance to see what developments had changed in their brother before their incidents. Lisa was positive that had Luna's not occurred, or if it did, at a later time, then given the schedule of her band and active weather, there was a high chance they could have met again. The possibilities that could have opened up were numerous and incredibly beneficial, but during each meeting, it was noted they had been moving apart. Why Lincoln is so transfixed on staying away from them is something Lisa felt was a byproduct of the curse.

But Sam, even two months out, gave a massive update on Lincoln's condition.

"And after that?" Lisa asked, wanting to know as much as possible.

"He got sick and blacked out in the front yard. After that… she said he became his older self again…"

"Older self like…?" Luan asked, remembering how 'older self' and 'Lincoln' were more multiple-choice than just one or two basic answers.

"Like, his actual old self. The one that was so active was doing things for us just out of goodwill and helping around the house and town. She said it was like he was a completely different person before he left. He even bunk with her because of her nightmares about the storm."

For the first time this whole time, the sisters, even Luna or frustrated Lynn or blank Lucy, felt a warmth wash over them despite some feeling oddly alarmed at the idea he was sharing a bed with some other woman—one they knew, sure, but one who knew him very well.

Through all the bad news that kept piling up, it felt like a massive relief to know the brother they all loved was still in there after all these years. It gave all of them hope, and it gave Lisa hope that maybe he wasn't completely removed from his connection to their family.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Lynn asked, feeling her anger build again. "You got that call a day after the twister and said he was there for a week? We could have gone down there and got him!"

"Because look around, Lynn!" Luna shouted, jumping off the bed to be two feet away from the athlete's face, "Look at where we are! What happened to Mom, Dad, Leni, Lucy, Lily, Luan, our town, our home?! Part of it is gone; we have nearly lost more than that! Are you seriously saying you'd just run off and abandon us to get him back here when we needed everyone here?!"

Red in the face, Luna waited for Lynn's answer, but she could see her reasons getting to her. Lynn sighed, shoulders dropping as she thought without a red lens and understood. Her family needed her here. Lincoln was safe as far as they knew. But that didn't mean there wasn't a chance that they could have been told earlier, have a brief shot to run down there, find him, and bring him back.

"Lisa, is there any way we can stop the curse without him?" Lynn asked, dropping the potential fight with Luna as the rocker retook her spot.

"I don't know…"

"What about-"

"I DON'T KNOW!" Lisa shouted again, standing up to look down at everyone with her eyes, threatening to let tears flow.

"What I know for certain is as of this moment… it is 150 days until his 21st birthday, and he has already outlasted either ancestor. As far as anyone knows, he's yet to father a single child, breaking away from the norm from which the last two times had developed. As far as it is from his part, our family bloodline stops with him…"

Running the back of her sleeve to wipe away the moisture, Lisa slowly lowered back onto the bed. She slumped over and exhausted as Luna reached over, holding her shoulder, as Lucy joined them on the bed. Sitting close to her side, she rubbed circles on her back, knowing her little sister didn't need this stress back.

"So then what do we do?" Leni asked the question again.

"I say we go after him." Lynn firmly stated, pounding her fist into her palm. If he has the ball and is running with it, I'd say we chase him, tackle, hogtie him to Vanzilla, and bring him back here!" She exclaimed, like motivating one of her sports teams.

"The van won't survive," Lana piped in. We're lucky it's still alive now. I doubt it has enough life left in it to get to the Great Lakes in a one-way trip."

"We can get a new van!" Leni exclaimed, imagining getting a new puppy.

"We can't afford to buy a new van right now, Leni. Pretty much everything is going into the house, including bills." Lori stated, though withholding, that she couldn't take her own car or get a quick plane ticket. Lisa might know the exact details about where the farm was, but unlike the young teen, she, as an adult, could do it more easily by just 'going somewhere real quick.'

"The house can wait!" Lana yelled, "We gotta get to that farm!"

"Wait a minute…" Lola spoke up with a counter.

In typical Loud fashion, the room descended into a bickering mess, with ideas being fired off and shot down by someone using a solid fact or to get their idea heard. Only Lisa and Lily stayed silent, knowing that right now, it was better to let them say their piece.

But Lisa knew, to some degree, what all of them were thinking. Even if some were a little slow to understand or got it instantly, it didn't help in her mind.

Knowing for years now that one of the very few people who could understand you even when you were basically an outsider to the broader world who would have preferred to stay inside a dark room and only work, there were a few people out in the world within the reaches of this royal that could understand what she did. Sure, there were others out there, but it was beyond the comforts of the walls that she could break from that shell and become someone better.

Lincoln understood her just like he did with all of them, and in his own way. If he were here right now, he'd either be part of the mess or keep quiet, too. He listened to everything they all had to say and picked out pieces from each one to build a plan that could accommodate them all…

She wasn't going to do this alone.

Not in the fact she couldn't do it. She could just as efficiently expedite things, and maybe within a month, when everyone was busy, she could slip away and start her mission, but the gravity of what was at stake echoed in everyone's mind. All these ideas, no matter how crazy or sound they were them, voicing their own means to try to get their brother back. If they wanted to do it their own way, they wouldn't get far or become lost, and she feared what might become of the latter.

Then, she started running the numbers, mental solutions for what could be done now and later, what they individually could do, and how to build it up…

"I… do have a 'plan' that was to go into effect once things for the family had improved to the point of stability, however…" She mumbled, getting their attention again, and Luna grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Elaborate. Now." the rocker stated with desperation in her voice.

"It would require modifications, and at best, we'd have only a month or two to prepare, but it could have us get to him before the next storm season starts." Lisa explained, turning back to her computer and pulling up several files with complete and incomplete 'plans' along with those she deemed too small to be viable and too big to be practical.

But the more she reread it all, faster than any of them could read a single page, her vast mind began to act like her brother would build a plan in this situation.

Taking the pieces that had already been presented with some of the ideas she had found more logical, her sisters said, she began to work on the mental math of how much time they had and how much they needed to prepare in such little time. All of them would have to perform their own kind of miracle if they were to hit the ground running hard and not fall flat-footed after the first ten steps. It would be a challenge, but it wouldn't be the craziest thing they've banded together to achieve. So, after making a small decision to change the name, Lisa began to list out what they would need to do to make Operation Heart Chaser a reality.

She just hopes that the weather and her brother don't become entangled again...

---

Log Entry Date: February 25th, 2026...

Brazil.

He went to goddamn Brazil, of all places…

---

(Note: These AN notes are written before, during, and afterhand to convey my thinking. Not based on what's changed, reviews, etc., and is borderline me ranting out loud my way of thinking.)

It's a random time to post, given it has now been over 26 days from my 20-day post schedule, but this is a bit wonky given I hadn't been working on it as much as I hoped as I've been busy with other things and only recently got the motivation to get it rolling again. Some part of me wanted to actually split this chapter in two, but it already got a late start despite it starting when I was working multiple 13 hour shifts a week, you'd think with all that time during downtime I'd have plenty of time to get stuff done but here we are.

Some might see the ending as a memey way to end this chapter, I'd recommend searching up and watching 'STORM CHASING ARGENTINA' by Pecos Hank for an idea of what the context is. (As I have an early working idea for a potential spin-chapter like Chapter 10.)

As someone had pointed out about Chapter 31 (as this chapter is being written after it went live) it wasn't meant to be a filler chapter, yet what was supposed to actually be the second half of the chapter before that before I split the idea into what was supposed to be a smaller page. A lot of my chapters are meant to be much smaller, self-contained moments that get so big I have the urge to split it. At best, Chapter 31 would have been maybe 2k words, but the idea exploded into that 13k beast and I had cut a large chunk of it out.

This chapter, like 32, is meant to be a circle back to how the second chapter of the story built up the family's situation. Part of this is mostly to give them all the time to adjust to the new change in life and heal while still being in the dark about the situation. Originally, the concept of this chapter had the family find out about El Reno in a different way, and over the rest of winter, they'd prepare to go to Oklahoma on the simple mission to get Lincoln, and later down the line, Lisa would reveal the curse. Because of my restructuring of future chapters, this part was removed from its original timetable and rebuilt into what it is now.

Moreover, as this grew, it let me expand on several fronts, especially the Bad Luck situation, in that its aftermath was originally supposed to end with Lincoln coming home and telling them just to leave the incident in the past and not have anyone know about what the family did. This didn't feel possible given that a twister had torn through town straight to their front door with someone filming it, word will spread.

How the aftermath of that went is a bit tricky, as I've read dozens of No Such Luck stories that ranged from Lincoln running away, the family going absolutely mental in their ideas, the family being forcibly broken up or just Lincoln taken away to a new family…

There's a lot of ideas to build from.

Probably the stories that inspired me the most were "What is a Person Worth?" by That Engineer and "Loud Visions" by Rack 44 (even if the former isn't really involved with NSL), with a few others sprinkled in for a mixed flavor. Really, there's a good chunk of story to tell from just that time period, but maybe told later.

Now some might find how the sisters are reacting a bit OFC or not how a normal person would react, and that is true in the two parts of 1, I was in my own little state of burn out during the writing period for this, and 2, the sisters all have been emotionally burnt out by all that's happened.

Just think of everything that's happened within a year, sure there were breaks and high moments in between, but with all the bad stuff circling back to one focus, for them to find out things like your loved one was on the verge of his untimely demise and things in the past you regretted for years turns out to be something you'd swore to take to your grave, it eats up a lot of mental power.

Like Chapter 2, it was to give them that moment of reflection in the immediate situation. They suffered, recovered, enjoyed peace until being beaten back down again. Though Lincoln wasn't there, he still was, and anyone discovering that a loved one was destined to die no matter what you do soon would make anyone look back at everything. The large central focus going down the sisters' thoughts gave me another chance at the individual characters' thinking to learn what the wider scale of the situation really is. This made the eventual interaction between Brother and Sister a bit more complicated, as one party knows and thinks the others don't when in fact they do.

You'll notice out of the current group, I hadn't done anything for the youngest 5 (Lucy, Lana, Lola, Lisa, and Lily) at the time this sentence was being typed up, I was in the process of writing the twins part, but got a somewhat of an idea in how to build them better up. As Lucy and Lisa are both very well established and have not much reason to tread that ground again, but the twins, I haven't really done much all this story and Lily has become a changed person, so the next chapter will be working more around the three of their mindsets while still touching in with all the others, as its expected to go a bit deeper into the mindset of everyone over time, as to give them all the benefit of time to digest and come to turns with what has been said here while getting them ready for what is to come.

And in recent times, I've begun thinking over how some chapters in the close and far future can be built up to as I've inconsequently set myself a limited time frame; as Lisa said that from this moment (January 5th), there are now 150 days till Lincoln turns 21 on June 5th

A lot can happen between long breaks of downtime to short succession in under those 150 days. A lot.

(Note: These AN notes are written before, during, and afterhand to convey my thinking. Not based on what's changed, reviews, etc., and is borderline me ranting out loud my way of thinking.)