NOT ABANDONED! Just a temporary lack of ideas!

Chapter 2: The New "Normal"
Part 2

Lincoln had fallen asleep from sheer emotional exhaustion by the time Luan arrived that evening. She was dressed all in black with black leather gloves and carrying a black duffel bag slung over her shoulder. Her light-brown hair was still in its signature ponytail, but she had long ago gotten her braces removed.

"I got your message, Mom. Who do I need to rough up this time?" she asked, setting the duffel bag on the ground once she stepped into the house and closed the door behind her.

"Lincoln's new ex, Cristina," Rita replied through clenched teeth. "That two-timing little floozy had a secret affair behind Lincoln's back all summer, and Lincoln only just found out about it. On top of that, she broke Lincoln's heart by calling him a monster to his face! Make her pay. Dearly."

Luan chuckled darkly as she picked up her bag and walked back out the door.

"Oh, I intend to," she said, filled with the same grim determination that was usually reserved for April Fool's Day.

...

It was the middle of the night when Luan pulled up to Cristina's house in her car. The air was totally still, and all of the windows were dark. Cristina's fancy convertible was parked in the driveway with the top down. Luan giggled giddily when she saw the car, not believing her luck.

"Silly girl! Don't you know that if you leave the top down, it might get tampered with?" she asked nobody. Getting the duffel bag out of the trunk of her own car, Luan got to work.

When the car was finished, Luan switched her attention to the house. After carefully checking for burglar alarms and security cameras and finding neither, she picked the locks on the front door and slipped inside. A few minutes later, she slipped back out and locked the door behind her, having accomplished her goal and left no trace of her presence. Luan got into her own car and drove away with a satisfied smirk.

All that was left to do was wait for the fireworks.

...

The next morning, Cristina yawned as she walked into her kitchen to start a pot of coffee brewing. She turned on the faucet of the sink to fill the coffee pot with water, only for the water to come shooting out of the spray nozzle instead. Cristina shrieked as ice-cold water soaked the front of her pajamas, and her surprise caused her to lose her grip on the glass coffee pot, which in turn shattered on the hardwood floor.

"Great. You are so not invited over anymore, Chandler," the girl grumbled as she turned the faucet off and carefully stepped around the glass shards covering the floor. She opened the cupboard where she kept her favorite breakfast bagels, and was promptly covered head-to-toe in flour from a precariously balanced, wide-open bag of the stuff on the very top shelf.

As she struggled to get the white powder out of her eyes, she heard the distinct sound of a camera going off. With wide eyes, she spotted a camera right in front of her face emblazoned with the logo of Funny Business, Incorporated. Her face scrunched up in anger as she realized who the true culprit was.

"WHY THAT LITTLE-" she started to yell, only to be interrupted by a sharp TWANG! A slingshot of some sort had been triggered, launching two Hamburger Dill pickle slices that landed over each of her eyes, and one whole pickle that lodged itself in her open mouth.

The camera went off again as Cristina screamed through a mouthful of salted cucumber.

...

Lincoln was moping on the couch as he nibbled on some breakfast. Lily was on the floor in front of him watching an Ace Savvy cartoon on TV. Lynn had gone out for a jog while Clyde was still in Lynn's room, sleeping in (Clyde's mutation hadn't affected their relationship in the slightest, and the two spent nearly every waking moment together). Lucy was in the kitchen, baking cookies and homemade dog treats. Lisa was in her bunker doing experiments. Finally, the twins were outside, playing with Scout and the other pets.

Suddenly, Lincoln's ears twitched when he heard his phone chime. When he unlocked the screen, he realized it was a notification from his social media profile: Luan Loud has added to album Cheaters Never Prosper. As slapstick humor was the basis of her profession, Luan had created the photo/video album on her profile to serve as a warning to all who would dare to break her siblings' hearts, as well as to give a good laugh to anyone else who happened to view them.

Lincoln opened the album, and his eyes widened. The first of the two new photos was Cristina in her pajamas, standing in her kitchen and covered in white powder that clung to a damp spot on her shirt. She had her hands covering her eyes, no doubt in the process of trying to wipe her face. The first photo was captioned FLOUR POWER!

In the second photo, Cristina was still covered in flour, but now had the two pickle slices over her eyes and the large pickle sticking out of her mouth. The caption of this photo was CHEATER, CHEATER, PICKLE EATER!

There was also a video that, according to the time stamp, had just been filmed two minutes ago. Lincoln clicked the "play" button.

"Hellooooooooo, internet! Luan Loud here, coming to you live from Funny Business, Incorporated Headquarters!" Luan announced as she walked through her privately owned joke shop, filming herself from her phone's camera. "It's come to my attention that my little brother, Lincoln, has been getting some bad publicity lately. You know what I have to say about that? Give the poor guy some SPACE! I'm not sure if anyone else is aware, but my brother recently found out his girlfriend cheated on him. He feels bad enough already; he doesn't need any extra attention right now. Does that seem fair to you? I should hope so! Because if you don't leave my family alone, me and my company will be forced to take DRASTIC measures. And when I get involved..." Luan grinned maliciously, turning on a filter that gave her scarlet eyes and fangs. "...no one is safe!" The filter switched off, and Luan put on a much friendlier smile. "With that in mind, I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day!"

That was when the video ended, and Lincoln smiled at Luan using her social media influence to try to protect him from unwanted attention.

Just then, there was a commotion outside: the squeal of tires pulling into their driveway, followed by the blaring of a car's horn and a rage-filled scream. Lincoln's sharp nose picked up the scent of his ex, as well as the pheromones attached to her anger. With a dog-like YIPE! of alarm, Lincoln grabbed Lily and scrambled for a hiding spot.

Just as he dove through the doorway of his mom's bedroom, Cristina kicked in the door and stormed inside. Lincoln and Lily peeked out and had to do a double take. Cristina's hair and eyebrows were missing, mascara was running down both cheeks, and she was covered in ultra-fine glitter.

"WHERE IS SHE?! WHERE'S THAT LOUSY B**CH, LUAN?!" Cristina screamed, making Lincoln grimace and cover his sensitive ears.

"Please don't use that kind of language. There are young children still present, you know," Lucy replied calmly, emerging from the kitchen with a bowl of cookie dough tucked under her arm and wearing a flour-spotted black apron. "And if you must know, Luan is no longer a member of this household. She moved away to pursue her desired career."

"Where is she, then? She needs to pay for what she did to me!" Cristina continued to shout.

"Alright, let's start at the beginning. What did she do?" Lucy continued, remaining calm while stirring the bowl of cookie dough. Cristina looked at her incredulously.

"Are you serious?! After she made a mess of my kitchen, she filled my shampoo bottle with hair remover! Then she put a glitter bomb in my car and hooked the brake to the horn!" After her rant, Cristina just stood in the middle of the living room, panting and heaving.

"That's it? That's what you're so upset about?" Lucy asked after a moment of silence. Cristina couldn't believe her ears.

"Well...yeah! I mean, wouldn't you be mad if it happened to you?!" she asked.

"Of course I would," Lucy replied, setting her bowl down on the coffee table. "But it sounds to me like you deserve everything that Luan did to you. After all...you broke my big brother's heart!" With fury blazing in the eye that peeked out from her bangs, Lucy grabbed Cristina's arm in a vise-like grip, causing her to cry out in pain. Lucy then dragged her to the front door and quite literally threw her out of the house. "If you set one foot on our property ever again, we'll call the police and tell them you're trespassing," she growled before slamming the door shut. "Okay, you two, you can come out, now."

"You didn't have to do that, Lucy, but thanks all the same," Lincoln thanked Lucy as he and Lily emerged from their hiding spot.

"Just don't expect any more favors from me until you learn from your mistakes," Lucy replied and walked back into the kitchen. There were a few moments of peace after that, before Lynn suddenly burst through the door and slammed it shut behind her, leaning against it with a panicked look on her face.

"We've got trouble!" she announced upon recovering her breath. "There's a bunch of weird guys in black suits asking around about you, Lily, and Clyde. I don't know what they want, but it can't be good!"

"Interesting. Describe them as best as you can," requested Lisa, who had pulled a Lucy and snuck inside without even Lincoln knowing. Lynn huffed and blew a lock of stray hair out of her face.

"Trust me, sis, you'll know 'em when you see 'em. Black suits, white shirts, black ties, close-cropped black hair. They have this weird way of talking, and they can't possibly be related, but they all look exactly the same!"

"Cristina was just scared away by Lucy! If she runs into them, she'll lead them right to us!" Lincoln realized with horror.

"Never fear, elder brother. Perimeter defenses are already in place. Anything perceived by my scanners to be a threat will be deterred quite forcefully," Lisa assured him.

...

Later that evening, Clyde and what remained of the Loud household were all gathered downstairs for Movie Night when once again, the squealing of tires was heard from outside. Only this time, there was more than one set of tires. Lynn peeked through the curtains, and her eyes widened.

Three white vans marked TCRI were parked in front of The Loud House, and exiting said vans were dozens of the black-suited men she'd encountered earlier, all of them with futuristic-looking guns in their hands.

"Uh, guys? We've got company!" she warned her family. One of the men outside stepped forward and spoke, his voice unnaturally loud, like he was speaking through a megaphone.

"We come seeking three individuals. The one who is called Lincoln Loud. The one who is called Lily Loud. The one who is called Clyde McBride. Hand over the Mutants, and no harm will come to the resident humans. Continue to hide them, and the resident humans will be destroyed."

"Now would be a good time for your defenses to activate, Lisa," Lincoln said, a sense of urgency in his voice. Lisa sat on the couch with her custom-built, highly advanced laptop in her lap, a look of panic on her face as she frantically tapped away at the keyboard.

"They can't! The scanners are jammed, and something is overriding my system!" she exclaimed. "I can probably fend off this hacker, but it will take time!"

No sooner had she finished speaking than the men outside began firing magenta laser bolts from their strange guns, targeting several load-bearing sections of the house with devastating accuracy. While everyone was scrambling to find some form of cover, the entire front of the house crumbled away, exposing the whole family to the attackers.

As he watched the men level their blasters at him, his mother, and the rest of his family, something snapped inside Lincoln, and he gave himself over to instincts that told him to protect his pack at all costs. Using a combination of his new beastly strength and the various martial arts styles he'd picked up over the years, he lunged at the men and tore into them with reckless abandon. He tossed them around like they were toys, and his sharp teeth and claws tore them to pieces. So focused was he on fighting them off that he failed to notice that the pieces that came off of their bodies were metal instead of flesh, or that one of them was aiming a blaster at his unprotected back.

"LINCOLN, LOOK OUT!" cried Clyde, only for the warning to fall on deaf ears. At the last second, something white streaked past the other family members and pounced on the gunman about to shoot his master.

Lincoln finally whirled around when he heard several loud zaps that accompanied a high-pitched howl of pain. His eyes widened with horror at what he saw: Scout, his faithful canine companion, lay motionless on the ground, his white fur marred by a handful of smoldering scorch marks.

Tears ran down his face as he turned back to the battered Kraang soldiers, parts of their human disguises stripped away to reveal the machines beneath.

All he saw was red.

"You...killed...my...DOOOOOOOOOG!" he bellowed in rage. His body seemed to inflate as he drew air into his massive lungs. Then, opening his jaws as wide as they would go, he unleashed a deafening howl that took the form of waves of crimson energy. The powerful sonic attack sent the Kraang soldiers flying down the street like tumbleweeds, and even knocked over their vans. As his lungs emptied and the attack ceased, Lincoln nearly collapsed, his bulging arms the only thing holding him up as he panted and heaved.

"EUREKA!" Lisa shouted as her defense systems finally came back online. With a loud hiss, two hidden panels in the yard slid open, allowing two massive Tesla coils to rise to the surface, a low hum filling the air as they charged with electricity. Lisa then looked toward Clyde. "Now's your chance! Take Lily and run!" she ordered. Never having faced such a dilemma before, though Clyde frantically gazed around.

Lincoln was still recovering his breath. The strange mechanical men were starting to climb back to their feet. And the Louds' neighbors were emerging from their houses, Lincoln's sonic howl having blown out their windows. The strangest thing was that all of them were armed, wielding everything from firearms to baseball bats to cooking utensils.

Lincoln flinched when he felt a hand on his shoulder. When he looked up, he was gazing into the sympathetic eyes of his wizened old neighbor, Bud Grouse.

"Go on, boy; it's you they want. We'll hold them off while you make a run for it," Mr. Grouse told him. Lincoln said nothing, but his eyes conveyed his gratitude. The old man smiled, turned toward the approaching Kraang, and crammed an old army helmet onto his head, dropping his cane as he racked the chamber of an older-model automatic rifle with a wooden stock and an attached bayonet. "COME ON, YOU ROBOTIC FREAKS! I'VE FACED GREMLINS TOUGHER THAN YOU!" the veteran challenged as he shuffled forward.

Not wanting to waste the chance they were given, Lincoln got Clyde to snap out of his panic. He then grabbed Lily and threw her onto his back.

Then, they ran. Longer and faster than any of them had before, especially as regular humans.

They didn't stop to rest until the sun peeked above the horizon, and they were many miles away from Royal Woods.

Sorry for the wait, everyone, but a lot of planning had to go into this chapter. I knew where I wanted to go with it; actually getting there was the problem. Regardless, I hope you're all happy with it.

And don't worry, this isn't the last you'll see of Scout the white wolf. He will be a more prominent character in one of my future projects.