The first case

*CRAAAAACK*

 Well, I guess you're wondering who the young rogue behind the desk is, slowly sipping his coffee as all heck breaks loose just oustide. The name's Lincoln Loud. No need to scream it, you'll just wear out your vocal chords, and the roaring winds mixed with bonechilling rain have already got that job locked down, key and all.

It was a typically slow day. Not a peep from the sun, nor anything stirring in the rest of the building. You'd think everyone just up and died, but the chances of that would be awfully slim. Speaking of grave circumstances, the only other living thing here is my long time partner, and best friend, Clyde McBride. We've been through so much together, you could say we're practically brothers. Nice enough of a kid, but he's never been able to handle pressure well.

*CRAAAAAACK*

"AAAAAaaaahhhhhh!" In a flash, he was gone.

It didn't take much of a genius to wonder where he just went. "C'mon Clyde, get out from under the desk! It was just the thunder from outside." I tried to coax him out as he laid there in a fetal position, just as always. I swear, he has just the right kind of talent to make his way under you when you least expect it. I wonder if he learned that from his dad. Errr, dads.

"Thanks buddy." He managed to wheeze, still shaken up from the loud boom. " I wonder if we're really cut out to be detectives? We've had crazy weather all week, and not one problem has come up for us to solve."

He's right. It's been trying to rain cats and dogs all week, yet today we're getting the full brunt of it. Maybe if it was literally raining cats and dogs, then that'd be something we could work with. Lisa would probably be the one behind it. Maybe we should just cut our loses and quit. It's been a good run everyone.

I thought i'd try and end this day with something good by reading some comics, until some knocks came from the door, followed by a violent crash! Startled, I rose up with a jolt, only to be calmed down by a familiar high pitched voice.

"Ohhh~ So this is where I'd find you." It was none other than Lola, the local pageant queen. Temptress of all who'd ever think to fall for her feminine charms before she runs their pockets dry. Can be outright cold to the bone if you rub her the wrong way.

And not far behind her is her exact duplicate. Lana, her ever faithful bodyguard. Never was the kind of person afraid to get dirty. We've tussled a few odd times. Nothing serious, and all in good fun. But this time around, it looks like she's cleaned up her act, sporting some rather fancy shades and rather plain overalls, in contrast to Lola's flashier flowing dress and heavy makeup, with the smell of perfume clouding the air. This was no time for games, and I had to make sure to use my words carefully.

"Lola, Lana, what are you two doing in here?!" Smooth.

The twins shot a darting look at each other. The little princess gave a soft chuckle before relaying her message in a rather... calm and collected manner. "Ohohoho, so this is how you're gonna play it, eh? Well listen here you little "Private eye", gumshoe, whatever it is you want to call yourself! We heard about this crime solving business you set up in the house, and we want in on it! We have some need of your services, and thought you wouldn't mind since you weren't busy with such a lack of clients." I could just hear the condescension building in her voice, you'd have thought she'd be choking on it by now.

"Hey Linc, why don't we take up their offer?" Clyde echoed. Now that I think about it, where did he... Oh, looks like he launched himself up into the vents after those two busted in here. "Sounds like a good opportunity for our first case! What's the worst that could happen?"

Before I could say anything else, a sharp scream eminated from the vents. Guess Clyde must have found Lucy up there. Can he ever catch a break? But he's right. I can't be picky with what jobs I get at this point. Time to spring to action.

"Well, alright Lola. You win. So, what do you have in store for us? Bandits breaking into the house? Lisa bringing a monster to life?
A giant Lily?! Leni going to college?!?"

"Woah woah woah, hold your horses. Nothing like that. But I'm glad you see it our way." The shortstack interjected in a sultry voice.
She then placed a hand on my sholder and leaned in. As if that would do anything. I've grown immune to such musings. "Yeah, we'd have a real problem on our hands had you refused" Lana finally piped up, pounding her fists together. Like I even had a choice.

"So, let's cut to the chase. Talk is cheap, but time is money. I was supposed to have my daily tea time right around 4. An hour earlier I had finished having Lana help polish all of my trophies. We finished preparing the tea and cookies and started taking it up to our room when..... when...." When.... what?

"...When all of my tea cups were chipped!!!"

What a smack in the face. This is our first case? Who in the world would go out of their way to chip her tea cups?

And with perfect timing, Clyde manages to fall out the vent and land on my bed, but still end up on the floor. "W-w-we're on it."
He weakly mumbled. Poor kid. Well, it looks like a job for the Savvy Ace detective in....

                                         TEA TIME: EARL GRAY GOES GREEN WITH ENVY

We hastily made our way to the girls room, where the travesty occured. Broken bits of cups litter the floor. A lone kettle not too far away, with its contents spilled onto the floor, creating a huge red stain. What a waste of tea.

"Oh yeah! Lincoln, your spooky sister wanted me to give this to you. She heard about our case from the vents, wrote something on a piece of paper, and stuck it in my hair before I fell." I received the little note from Clyde, and sent him over to the table to collect some prints. Looking over the note, she clearly meant for it to be for my eyes only. Mainly because she wrote that on the top of it. And as such it read:

Much like this letter I gave you, rather well enclosed.
This is an open and shut case, all your culprits will shrink.
An incident quite similar, which shall be proposed,
That the person you're looking for is closer than you think.

"P.S. I know Lynn didn't do it. I've been in the room with her all day bouncing the tennis ball, as usual. And I wouldn't go out of my way to try and smash Lola's cups. Not when I have by ghost friends to talk to." Well, there's two down. Three if you include Lily. There's no way she would have done it with no one watching. I was just about to grab and ask about the evidence, when the BEAST was awakened.

"Please Bobby, get with the program. I've literally been in my room for the past two hours with Leni because it won't let up outside. Let me tell you, I-..." And then her voice trails off. What was the time now? ... 5:30. The twins were supposedly in the room until 4. No way she or Leni did it at this point. Now to grab Clyde and

"Sorry Linc, gotta go on a stakeout. I'll meet back with you later! There were no prints on any of the cups."

No prints. None at all? Hmmm... I can only assume whoever did it was smart enough to use gloves. Well, now that i'm all alone, time to take my own look at the cups. Whoever broke the cups went out of their way to make the crack look as similar as possible. If someone just wanted to break the cups, they wouldn't pay this great amount of detail to it. Something Leni would've done, but she's out. If there's one thing about Luna, subtle would be the worst way to put it. Chill, but rather up front with her brand of mayhem. But I wouldn't put it past Luan to make an intricate prank like this. That is, if it was funny.

But funny it is that I would bring her up. Now, I've known for a while that she's been taping us for some material or to find some chink in our defenses. Luckily, I found the one in my room and blocked it. For the time being anyway.

Not here, not here, and AHA! The camera tape and all. Now to just rewind the footage back to an hour and a half. There's the girls leaving the room. Probably on their way to make the sweets. So far so good. Nothing's been broken yet. I sat around going through every second meticulously. My brain begain to rot and grow numb, wondering if going through Luan's stuff was even worth it, until a familiar figure creeped up on the screen. B-but it couldn't be. "L-Lana?!"

I couldn't take my eyes away from the scene of Lana, icepick in hand, carefully carving into each individual cup. As if performing a well executed labotomy, slowly drilling into the glassy exterior, the tireless grinding etching itself into my mind. I could feel the inside of my head begin to itch. And if that wasn't enough, she took out what looked like some of dad's tools out her pockets, branding her victims with a similar scar. Then she leaves, and later returns with Lola back to the scene of her crime.

But why? How could Lana do this to Lola? The two are near inseparable. It just doesn't add up. Unless...

And speak of the devil, the two shortstacks show up out of nowhere. "So Mr. Detective." Lola spat out, rather grated it to me so long to get to this point. "Any closer to finding out who actually did this? I'd assume you would actually do better for your first job."
Oh, so you want the truth? Well, time to pay it back in spades.

"So, you wanna know who did it? Well then, why don't we have Lana 'fess up then?!" All I saw were the shades slip from her face, and the look of incoming tears about to flow from her eyes. A sight of pure confusion. Sorry kid, but I have to push all the way through on this. "I have evidence right here of you making your way back the room after 4, without Lola with you bringing the tea. With everyone else closed up in their rooms, and your very own twin sister preoccupied making the goods, you sneaked off to wreak havoc on her tea set, all before slipping out of there just to make yourself unassuming. So, anything you have to say for yourself?"

At first, she couldn't say much. She just stammered, trying to formulate as many words as possible, but they just wouldn't come out. She choked on every letter, until the tears came. Oh boy, I laid it on a bit thick there. "Lincoln, do you really think I could do something like that?! You don't trust me?! I-i-i k-know I can be a... a bit rowdy, but i'd never d-do something... like... thaaaaat!" It seemed like she tried to run away, but her legs gave out on her, and she could do nothing more but sit and wallow in her tears. Sometimes it slips my mind just how pure she really is. I cast away the hardboiled persona I tried to build up, and did the brotherly thing. I nudged at her to get her attention, wiped away the tear with my hand, and gave her the biggest embrace I could.

"There, there. I didn't really mean to upset you like that. I know you didn't do it." I brought out the sweetest tone I could to reassure her that I meant it. She paused for a second, sniffled, and then muttered as soft "R-really?"

"Really. Though what I want to know is if someone here really is sorry." I slowly turned towards the other double, looking increasingly worried as if she had a direct hand in this. I knew I had her on the ropes. "How could you possibly think about framing your sister."
The both of them gasped.

"What could you possibly mean Lincoln? Do you really think I would break my own stuff?" Her normal iron will was eroding away.

"Well, who else would have as clear of an idea of where the exact cracks in the original cup where to duplicate it. Actually, from the look of things I couldn't tell which one it really was if it weren't for the excess shaving on the other cups. Also, it's true Lana. You can be rowdy. So i'd never have thought you'd be able to do this without causing a much bigger mess with no one noticing. You're more of the heavy artillery, like with Big Bertha. Speaking of which, you like to get down and dirty. CLyde mentioned that there were no fingerprints on any of the cups. I originally thought that whoever did it had to have had gloves. You're not the kind of person to go out of their way and get gloves for a job like this."

And now, for the final nail in the coffin. "Except for Lola, who wears gloves on a normal basis, and being the lady of class that she is, would stress not to blemish her figure, even if it meant her hands, which aren't normally seen. And there's no one else who would be able to look so much like Lana other than her twin!" And there we go. The look of dumbfoundedness on her face is staggering. "Lana, was there anything specific that happened just in between polishing the trophies and coming back for tea?"

She thought hard about what happened, her tears since have dried on her face. "Well, Lola did want me to go and take a quick bath. I tried to argue with her about how taking one wouldn't make a difference, and how I wanted to help make the cookies. But she told me that if I did i'd be able to wear these cool clothes she had Leni make for us, and went in anyway. I lost track of time and had no idea when I got out." There it is.

"I think i've got this fully connected now. So Lola, you had Lana go and take a bath while you went on ahead to put on her new clothes and take any suspicion off of your, incase anyone came out of their rooms and tried to make a case against you. It happened to be in your favor that not only was it a rainy and lazy day, so no one would come out for much of anything, but that with the hard downpour outside they wouldn't hear her taking a bath either. Plus, I noticed that you got a bit nervous when I started playing the footage." I was bluffing that fact, but it still hit her in the gut. "So, why would you do it?"

Silence. The rain fills it up, striking even harder than before. Just then, in a small moment of humility, the little girl opens up.

"P-promise you won't get mad?" I nodded in return, eager to hear why she decided to send me on this wild goose chase.

"I saw how all week you and Clyde wanted to be detectives, but nothing came up. You looked so sad having nothing to do, and being unable to go outside made it even worse. I was supposed to get a new tea set not too long from now, so I wanted to be your first case and let you have some fun. B-but I didn't think it would go this badly, and I'd have you get mad at Lana just because of me. I won't mind if you're mad at me inste-"

I didn't even let her finish but pulling her into a big hug. Soon she broke into some tiny sobs as well, not expecting to be shown this kind of forgivness. "It's alright. Did you really think i'd be mad at you. You two are my family, along with everyone else. I wouldn't trade you guys for the world, that's how much you mean to me. I should be thankful you went to these lengths just to make up a scenario for me and Clyde."

"I'm more than just a pretty face. you know." She jokingly added, and then leaned in to give me a kiss. I'm pretty sure I must have a nice mark on my face. I bring them both in a final time, picking up Lana's shades to give to her, and handing Lola a mirror so she can fix her makeup. Lola tries to hand me some money for solving the crime, just as promise. But I shoo it away, and tell her that the first one is on the house, just for her. I then make my way out their room, only to see Clyde peering over the railing staring at Lori. Typical Clyde.

"Well, looks like it was a job well done." I triumphantly assure him. "Really?! Well, who was it?" He replied, seemingly gaining interest again. But I just waive it off as a mystery to be uncovered for another day. For now, I just wanted to grab an Ace Savvy comic and lay in bed again. Hopefully soon our services are needed again. But not too soon.

Huh. Seems like the rain has stopped.