Super Hot Cookie Baking (WIP)

"Ladies. And Lincoln. Settle down," says Mr. Loud. The crowd gathered in the living room falls silent and apprehensive. "Today is December 15th. Do any of you remember what we did on December 17th last year?"

They grimace. "Was that when we had 'karaoke night at the Loud House?'" asks one.

"Yyyes. And your mom and I were talking, and we decided that we want to do something similar this year."

The children whine, collectively and in sync.

"Well," says their father, "I only mean that we want to do something as a family. We're not gonna do karaoke again." This earns him some relieved sighs. "No, we're thinking of something a bit less likely to result in property damage."

A few pairs of eyes glance at Luna. She scoffs and folds her arms.

"So... you'd better get your oven mitts ready, 'cause the Loud family is having a cookie-baking contest!"

His children stare at him.

"Uh, that's right! You're going to form pairs, and bake whatever kind of cookies you want. Then, when you're done, we'll try them all, and decide whose are the best!" He looks nervously from one child to the next, but is only met with expectant gazes and blank expressions. "... And then you all will get to eat the cookies!"

They begin screaming, jumping, cheering, and pumping their fists in the air.

"Yes! Yes!"

"I'm gonna make the most delicious cookies anyone's ever had!"

"Yeah! Cookies, cookies, cookies!"

Mr. Loud laughs with relief. "All right, all right - settle down again. Here's the agenda." He waits for the room to quiet; it does, slowly. "Sometime today, you each need to decide what kind of cookies you want to make. This evening, we'll get together again, and we'll get you all sorted into teams of two." A few of the children exchange glances. "Tomorrow, you'll need to look up a recipe for your cookies, and I'll head to the store to get whatever ingredients you need. Then, on Saturday, we bake, eat, and vote for the best! Sound good?"

The children resume their cheering and screaming.

----

Luna kicks open the door to her and Luan's room, and the two sisters walk in with springs in their steps. "This contest," says Luna, "is gonna be ROCKIN'!" She throws two hands of horns into the air.

"I'm gonna use my awesome baking skills to BURN the competition! Ahahaha!"

Luna crashes onto their bean bag chair and turns a smirk towards Luan. "Hey, sister. Dad says we'll be workin' in teams a' two. What say you an' me team up to come out on top?"

"That sounds sweet, Luna!" Luan winks and points a finger-gun at her sister. "What kind of cookies should we make?"

"I'm thinking... gooey. How about chocolate chip?"

"Gooey?" Luan frowns.

"Yeah! Like, we'll stuff as many chips in each one as we can! Ooh, and caramel! And marshmallows! In fact, forget the cookie! Just mash it all up in a bowl and serve!"

Luan says nothing.

"Oh, I can almost taste it now..." A little drool leaks past the corner of Luna's lips. "Whaddaya say?"

"I was thinking of something, uh, simpler, actually."

Luna wipes her mouth. "Yeah?"

"Yeah! I'd rather have just plain cookies with frosting on them." Luan sits down on her bed. "Maybe some sprinkles. Is there a name for that?"

"Iunno." Luna shrugs. "Frosted cookies?"

"Well, that's what I'm thinking."

Luna stares at her with pursed lips.

"You don't like it."

She puts on an apologetic face. "Maybe we can compromise?"

"Sure! We could have, ah..." The sisters pause for a moment, but fail to think of any common ground they share.

"Nah, I'm sorry," says Luna. "I don't think we're gonna be workin' together on this one."

Luan shrugs it off. "That sucks. Teaming up would have frosted my cookies! Ahaha!"

"That means it woulda made you angry, sis."

"Oh, really?"

"I think so. Hey, is it still snowing outside?"

"I'm pretty sure it's stopped." Luan pulls open the window's drapes, revealing stagnant grayscale past them. "Yeah. But it was ICE while it lasted! Ahahaha!"

Luna stands up and bounds over to the window. "Oh, dude," she says, looking outside with a wide smile. "How much do you think we got?"

"I'd say... it's snow small amount! Hahaha!"

Her smile disappears. "Okay, now you're starting to frost MY cookies."

----

Lola and Lana march on through the snow,
bringing an old wood taboggan in tow.

They nearly step onto a laying-down child.
"Hey, Lucy! Come join us!" "Perhaps in a while.

"I'm making snow angels and other snow things."
Lola's confused. "But where are their wings?"

"These angels have fallen," says Luce with a grin.
"Corrupted and cruel, they have learned how to sin."

"Lucy," says Lana, "Watchu gonna make?"
"What kind of cookies do you want to bake?"

"All that I want when it comes down to sweets
is extra-pentuple-dark chocolate to eat."

"Grody!" says Lola. "Who'd want to eat dark?
It's ugly and bitter and nasty and barf!"

Lucy regards her young sister in pink.
"Tell me what you like, if that's what you think."

"Wafers vanilla! I love them with tea!"
"Boring!" says Lana. "Don't partner with me!

"I like things that squish. I want cookie DOUGH!"
"Ugh, don't remind me! Can we please just go?"

The twins march away, off to search for a hill.
"Have fun with your angels!" "Believe me - I will."

But Lucy, she sees that the twins are fun, too.
"Hold up!" she shouts. "Can I come with you?"

----

The ice dragon looks down from behind the walls of her keep. "Foolish knight! You and your friends shall be swallowed by freezing death! Your frozen bodies will be lost among LITERALLY a thousand more!"

The knight smiles from behind his own walls. "Swallow THIS!" he says, and he throws a mighty weapon of his own making. It lands with a 'piff,' five feet to the right of the dragon's keep.

"HA!" she shouts. "You couldn't hit the broad side of a b--!" She looks down to see a snowball where her mouth should be.

"For you, babygirl, I could hit ANYTHING!" shouts the gladiator.

The dragon wipes the snow off of her chin. The knight casts a sideways glance at his friend and says, "Don't make this awkward, Cladius."

"Sorry, Lincoln. I mean, Sir Lincelot."

"Duck!" says the knight, clutching his hat.

The two warriors take cover behind their wall, narrowly dodging a barrage of snowballs from the other fort.

"Hey, princess!" shouts the knight, peeking his head up. "Why are YOU attacking us? We're here to save you!"

"Screw that! Lori, I mean, the dragon, she's, like, WAY cooler than you guys!"

The dragon gives her opponents a smug smirk.

"I don't think she'sh cooler than THISH!" retorts the wizard. With a 'thwack,' she releases her tiny catapult, launching a high-speed snowball at the dragon's keep - but it's caught by an even faster baseball glove.

"Well, I am!" shouts the rogue.

The wizard shakes a tiny, mitten-clad fist. "Lynn... You will shuffer at my handsh..."

The knight, dragon, princess, wizard, and gladiator exchange more snowballs. The knight takes a fast one to the shoulder, and the gladiator manages to knock off the princess' hat with another. Laughter softens the bitter wind and warms the stinging snow.

The princess, molding another snowball, sees the rogue holding a hatful of ammunition, having discarded the baseball glove. "Whatcha doin'?" she asks.

"Wait and see, princess!"

The rogue holds the hat in one hand and dashes away - first, off to the side, and then across the battlefield. The other five watch her go.

"Hey, what's she doing?" asks the gladiator.

"Go, rogue!" shouts the princess.

"Don't just shtand there! Take her DOWN!" says the wizard as she loads her catapult again.

The knight and his allies barrage the rogue with a flurry of snowballs, to no avail.

"She's too fast!" says the knight. "I can't hit her!"

The rogue takes a snowball from her hat and pitches it. "Eat THIS!"

"NEVEEEERR!" shouts the gladiator, who throws one of his own back. Neither of their throws hits its target, but the rogue has already drawn another, and run all the way around to the other side of the knight's castle.

"She'sh clever," says the wizard. "We have no wallsh on thish shide! We're defenshelesh!"

The knight smiles. "Says you!"

He rolls to the side, dodging another projectile from the rogue, and stands up, trying to run after her.

"Oh, no you don't!" she shouts, with a grin as wide as her face. Rather than trying to skid to a halt, she throws her weight to the side, turning to dodge the knight's charge. He tries to turn after her, but trips over his own feet and falls to the ground. The rogue laughs and throws another snowball - but, now moving backwards, her coordination isn't what it could be.

Meanwhile, with the rogue and knight distracted, the wizard and the gladiator return to their battle against the dragon and the princess; however, they're vastly out-aged by their opponents.

The gladiator ducks below their wall, barely escaping icy wrath to his face. "This isn't working, wizard!"

"You're right," she says. She adjusts her glasses. "But I think I have a shtrategy to breasch their defenshesh."

Sir Lincelot, unaware of the wizard's plan, tries to hastily form a lump of snow into a ball while dodging the rogue's constant barrage.

"You'll never win!" she shouts. "You're too slow!"

He growls through his grin. He throws the snow lump in her approximate, but certainly not exact, direction.

She stops running to shout "HA-HA!"

And that distraction is enough for the knight, who removes his hat and pulls out a perfectly-formed sphere of snow. Before the rogue can say "what," it hits her square between the eyes, and she falls to the ground, defeated.

The gladiator turns around, sees her defeat, and cheers for the knight - but a lucky throw from the princess embeds itself in his hair.

"Ha!" she cheers. "We've hit all of you! We win!"

He turns around with a knowing smirk on his face. "Check your math!"

"We've only hit two of them," says the dragon. "Where's Li-- Where's the wizard?"

Only then does she look down and see a trail of raised and disturbed snow stretching from the knight's castle to the dragon's keep. Behind her, a tiny wizard pokes her head out of the snow. "Eat shnowballsh, prinshesh!"

And the princess makes an "Eep!" as she feels the sting of fast snow on her left buttock, ending the game.

Lori scowls. "Oh, that's not fair!"

"It'sh totally fair," says Lisa. "All I did wash go under your wall, inshtead of over it."

Cogs begin to turn in Leni's head. "So, if Lisa hit me... and nobody ever hit her..."

Across the yard, Lincoln and Clyde cheer in unison. "The good guys win!"

Lynn lowers her head in shame.

"Magic lizshards, zshero. Shienshe, one."

----

A middle-aged woman pulls a large pot from the stovetop. She begins to ladle boiling milk from it into a set of mugs, each branded with a cursive L. As the milk fills each mug, it begins to dissolve the cocoa therein, turning a welcoming brown.

"When you've got eleven kids," she says, "you've got to learn how to stay a step ahead of them at all times! You need to know when they'll be hungry, or thirsty..."

The back door clicks, and Lana slams it open; she leads Lucy and Lola into the house, each with a smile.

"... or, as in this case, cold," finishes Mrs. Loud, as she sets down the now-empty pot. She points to her children. "Hey, you three. Hats off. Coats off. Boots off. Snow pants off. In that order. Lucy, when they get their coats off, hang them on the hooks."

"Yes, Mother."

"The coats, not the children."

"Sigh. Yes, Mother."

"Hats and snow pants go down the laundry chute."

Lana yanks and pulls at a stuck zipper. Before she can say "Moooom," though, Mrs. Loud is already kneeling in front of her, pulling her zipper up and then down again, freeing her. "Thanks, Mom!" says Lana.

Once the coats, hats, shoes, pants, and hot chocolate are ready, the mother Loud leads the three children into the dining room, joining the other nine Louds. She begins handing out mugs one-by-one. "Luna, marshmallows. Lori, whipped cream."

Lori turns away from her phone to say "Thanks, Mom."

"Lana, unstirred with marshmallows. Careful, it's hot. Lucy, marshmallows. Careful, it's hot. Lynn, plain. Lincoln, whipped cream. Careful, it's hot."

Lincoln rolls his eyes. "I don't need to be told, Mom."

"Yes you do. Lisa, marshmallows. Luan, cream and a cherry."

"Thank you cherry much! Ahaha!"

Mrs. Loud suppresses a giggle. "Okay, that one was good. Ah... Lola, cream and a cherry. Careful, it's hot. Leni, cream. Careful, it's hot."

"Thanks, Mom! Ow, it's hot!"

"Just a little tiny sippy cup for Lily!"

"Aga gaga! Ehe!"

"For you, big boy, whipped cream."

"Thanks, honey."

"And, for me, extra marshmallows."

Luna looks at her with an angry pout. "How come you get extra marshmallows?"

"Because," says Mrs. Loud, with the smuggest face a mother can give to her daughter, "I'm the one who made the hot chocolate."

----