18. The New Loni

AN: An original idea inspired by the episode "Shop Girl". Thanks to sthompson1 for the help on this idea.

The Royal Woods Mall: a land of opportunity to shop, work or waste time. It's a haven for the majority of the youth in the town. At least, that's how Loni Loud sees it. He was walking toward the exit closest to the bus stop. A reusable bag slung over his arm that held clothes from a variety of department stores he visited.

Getting a new wardrobe for his half of the closet was no walk in the park. One of his favorite stores was having 30%-50% off sale and the customers were chaotic. Like the kind of chaotic one would expect on Black Friday. He's got scratch marks on his face and disheveled hair to prove it.

"So worth it." Loni says to himself. He gets outside and crosses the parking lot when a deep, teenage boy's voice addresses him.

"Hey, Barbie! Stop!"

Loni obliges. "Sir, I'm a guy." He turns around and immediately recognizes the teen with black hair.

"Oh! Hi, Stan!" He cheerfully waves and walks closer to him. "How's your summer been?"

Stan turns to the three other friends standing behind him and they laugh together. It's amusing that the Loud teen is talking to him like he's forgotten who he is.

"What's in the bag, Barbie?" Stan sneers. Before Loni could answer, a blonde guy in the orange shirt in Stan's posse took the bag from him and search through it.

"Typical. Furity's been shopping!" Blondie says.

"Yeah! You wouldn't believe the struggle I went through to get that!" Loni says.

"Is that so?" Stan walks over to the bag and takes out a dress shirt. He rips a hole in where the right shoulder is. The look on Loni's face is priceless. He snatches his bag and his shirt back.

"Hey! There was absolutely no reason for you to do that!" Loni slings the bag on his arm. "I think that deserves an apology."

Stan suddenly grabs Loni by the shirt. Loni sees nothing but hate in his eyes. "Oh, so you think you're brave? Do you know what we do to guys who don't know their place?"

His three lackeys simultaneously crack their knuckles.

Back at the Loud House, the rest of the siblings are in the living room, sharing several bowls of popcorn as they were watching an animated movie.

"Bogus dude! She didn't have to break Miguel's guitar like that!" Luke comments after the scene unfolded.

"Well, that ended on a sour note." Lane laughs. "Get it?" Everyone else rolls their eyes.

Loni enters the house. "I'm back."

The siblings' jaws drop at Loni's appearance. On top of the minor injuries from the department store riot, his right eye is purple underneath, the lenses on his sunglasses are broken, his clothes torn and dusted with dirt, and there's a trail of dried blood on his chin.

Leif grabs the remote and pauses the movie. "Are you ok, Loni? Did you wrestle an alligator?"

"Where's your stuff?" Lynn asks.

"Actually, the scratches on my face was from a sale. That was before I bumped into this kid from school, Stan."

"Hightower?!" Loki, Luke, and Lane guess in shock.

"Yeah! You guys remember him. Anyway, he and his three friends took my stuff. They called me fruity then this happened." He gestures to himself.

"Wait. You literally got jumped by Stan and you let him walk away with all his teeth?" Loki asks outraged.

"I wouldn't worry about it, man." Loni shrugs and smiles. "I'll just move on and replace the clothes I bought with new clothes made from my old ones." He goes upstairs. Not looking back at the angry scowls on the faces who knew who Stan is.

"Who is Stan anyway?" Linka asks.

"Stanley Hightower is, in laymen's terms, a piece of white trash." Loki answers.

"He and his posse ruled the 11th grade." Luke explains. "People feared him. And no one dared to oppose to him because his dad was an administrator at the high school."

"Now he thinks his bullying expands outside the school borders." Lane finishes.

"What are we sitting around here for? Let's find him and bury him alive in our backyard." Lars suggests.

"One, that's morbid." Loki says. "Two, I wanna hunt down Stan down, too. But Loni's sixteen, we can't keep fighting his battles for him. He needs to stand up for himself. If only he wasn't so nice."

"Indeed. His submissive nature makes him easy prey." Levi says. "He needs to be more bellicose. That's a synonym for aggressive."

"Meaner." Lexx adds.

"And tougher." Lynn says.

"More like his siblings." Linka says. The brothers hum in agreement.

In his room, Loni was sewing something when his siblings barge in. His face was washed and there were bandages underneath his right eye.

"Loni, how would you like to give Stan a taste of his own medicine?" Linka asks.

"Why would I wanna do that? Most medicines taste disgusting anyway."

"No, I mean to get back at Stan for what he did to you!"

"Oooh. That's Ok. I'm fine." He stands and shows them what he was sewing. "Look, I turn these pajamas into jeans! Wait, now I don't have pajamas. I'll just make one from this other pair of jeans." He holds up a perfectly good pair of jeans.

Lane shakes his head and sits him down. "Loni, you gotta learn how to stand up for yourself. You can't let this shit slide." He points to the bandages.

"Yeah, big bro," Luke says. "That's why we're gonna teach you how to become cold as ice."

"Ok. As long as it makes you guys happy."

Linka facepalms and sighs. "Let's get to work."

Everyone accumulates in the hallway. "Tomorrow you're gonna face Stan as a new Loni." Loki says. "And when the new Loni gets roasted, he roasts back."

"Roasted?"

"That's another word for insulting. Lexx, front and center!" The little prince stands in front of Loni.

"Give him your best shot!"

"That's a nice shirt. You said you got it at Marcy's but I could have sworn I saw it at T.J. Marx." Lexx sneers.

"He just called you a cheap liar!" Loki says. "How are you going to retaliate?"

"I still have the receipt for this shirt if you wanna see it." Loni says to which everyone else groans. Lane steps up.

"Watch a master at work, Loni. Luke, your assistance?"

The rockstar plays along. "Get out of my way, you SpongeRob look-alike!"

"Y'all hear this 2012 Mikey-sound alike? I don't know why you're talking when you got those bird's feathers on top of his head! This dude has the audacity to be balding! You wear more jewelry than any of us combined; that's suspect! Actually, how are you still standing? Those jeans look like they're cutting off all circulation to your brain."

"What's the matter with the clothes I'm wearing? Can't you tell yours is out of style?"

"Go back to mediocre guitar playing that's gonna get you nowhere in the real world, Flop Star!"

Lane and Luke look back at Loni and they both grin at him writing down notes.

"Roast his looks and personal life. Got it!"

The siblings move to the kitchen. "Second lesson is getting your stuff back if it's stolen." Linka tells the sixteen-year-old. "Lars just stole your wallet!" The goth holds up the object in question. "What are you going to do?"

Loni stomps up to his younger brother in determination. "Lars, give that back to me, please." He says politely. "If you needed money, you could have asked me."

Leif shakes his head. "No, no, no! You gotta threaten him. Like this: Hey punk, I ain't playing with you! Give that back if you know what's good for you!"

"Or what?" Lars says.

Leif growls then kicks him in the shin. While Lars is clutching it and standing on one leg, Leif shoves him hard. The Goth collapses on the floor and drops the wallet. Leif takes it back and holds it up victorious.

Loni takes out his notepad. "Threaten. Make him fall. Grab belonging. Got it!"

Now they're in the backyard. "Third and final lesson: physical confrontation. Street name, fighting." Levi explains.

"Right. Cause fighting your bully worked so well the last time." Linka says sarcastically.

"Linka, the flaw with your experience is that you went into battle without training. Cold turkey if you will. Adolescent siblings, assemble!" The teenage brothers surround Loni and Levi.

"Since Stan has his gang of rapscallions, your objective is to take down multiple opponents at once." Levi pushes him closer to the four opponents. Loni smiles sheepishly before covering his face with his arms.

"Not the face!"

The younger siblings groan annoyed from the sidelines.

"Loni, no!" Lexx exclaims.

"Stand up for yourself!" Leif says.

Lynn pushes Loni toward the younger siblings. "I'll show how it's done. The key is to take down one opponent at a time and to move fast." He walks back to the other teens. "Alright. Come at me!"

The three boys charge at him. Loki throws a punch at him but Lynn blocks it smoothly. He brings his fist to Loki's stomach and while he's hunched over, Lynn steps and jumps off his back. The oldest falls down as a result. Lynn sticks his foot out and kicks Luke in the chest as he's coming down. This nearly knocks the wind out of the rockstar causing him to fall on his ass. Lane attempts to sneak from behind him but Lynn reaches behind and grabs him by the neck and mid back. He flips the comedian over his back. He lands on Luke.

Lynn does a victory dance. "Because I'm bad! I'm bad! You know it!" He sings.

"Literally?" Loki deadpans from his place on the ground.

"Take down one opponent at a time. Move fast. Sing a Jackson Micheals song." Loni says while taking notes.

The next day, all eleven siblings are next to the fountain in the center of the mall.

"Thanks for your help, guys!" Loni tell them. "I can't wait to meet the new Loni. Just one question: where's the old Loni?"

"Well, look who it is. Barbie and the Dreamhouse team. At the same time." Stan says walking up to the family. The other three guys laugh behind him.

"Barbie? Who do you think you're talking to?!" Luke exclaims.

"I got this." The platinum blonde separates himself from his siblings and walks up to Stan. He clears his throat before speaking. "Look here, Stanley. I'm not in the mood to hear you run your mouth today. Especially not in front of my siblings. Walk away. Now." He said all that in an assertive tone.

The plump guy in Stan's group scoffs. "Since when did you grow a pair, 50 Shades of Gay?" He takes the sunglasses off of Loni's head.

"What the hell?! Give that back before I make you regret it!"

"These dollar store shades? I don't-" The fat boy was interrupted by Loni kicking him in his manhood. He manages to grab his sunglasses before they fall to the floor with that boy and put them back safely on his head.

"Eric!" The blonde boy of the group exclaims. He and the other boy wearing a green hat help him up.

"Was I supposed to kick him in the shin or the nuts? I forgot." Loni asks his siblings.

"It doesn't matter! You're doing great!" Lexx answers.

Loni nods and turns back to the bullies. "And another thing. Why did y'all assume I got my sunglasses from the dollar store? Just because of you guys shop there, which is clearly where you guys got your clothes, does not mean the rest of us do." He hears his siblings laughing in the background and grins.

"What did we say about finding your place?!" Stan retorts.

"Oh, I got you, bro. As soon as you find your mother."

"Daaaaaaamn!" The Louds yell. They're all hollering and laughing harder.

Stan looks offended for a second before he regains his posture. "Kyle, Kenny! Teach this man a lesson!"

"I wish you would!" Loni says rolling up his sleeves. He and Kyle, the kid in the green hat, charges toward one another. He dips his head and wraps his arms around his waist. He surprisingly picks Kyle up over his shoulder. Loni spins him around so that his feet kick Kenny, the blonde guy, in his temple. Kenny winces in pain. While he's distracted, Loni shoots his whole body up and throws Kyle at the blonde, knocking them both down to the hard tile floor.

"I would stay down if I was you!" Loni tells the two boys.

"Eric!" Stan commands. The fat one runs and throws punches at the blonde Loud. But since Loni was more than half his body weight, he was faster. He dodges his punches with ease. Eric didn't see his punch toward his left eye coming. Or the punch in the nose coming. And an uppercut was enough for Eric as he falls down clutching his face.

Stan is the last one standing. He wants to make a beeline toward the nearest exit but his feet won't let him.

"Don't think I forgot about you, Stanley." Loni's foot made contact with his mouth. Stan stumbles back and Loni pushes him down.

"FINISH HIM!" Lynn yells.

Loni leans down and starts throwing punch after punch everywhere at his face. After 13 swings, Stan's left eye is bruised, his cheeks are swollen and his lips are busted and bloody.

"Say, uncle!"

"Uncle!" Stan cries out.

Loni releases him and stands up. "That's what I thought!"

He starts doing a victory dance. "You know I'm bad! I'm bad! You know it!" He sings.

His siblings run up to him and join in to dance like fools. "And the whole world has to answer right now just to tell you once again."

"Who's bad!" Loni finishes the verse.

"You rocked!" Luke tells him.

"Alright, Loni! You really malled them!" Lane cheers.

"I didn't know you had it in you!" Linka says.

"To be honest, neither did I!" Loni takes a good look at his surroundings. He now sees the crowd around them, mostly made up of teens. Half of them are whispering among themselves and shooting fearful glances at the sixteen-year-old Loud. The other half are putting away their phones and look just as appalled and scared. Loni looks down at the four boys again and fully examines this scene.

The supposedly sweetest Loud boy just beat up four bullies by himself.

Suddenly, Loni felt very self-conscious.

"Guys, can we leave now?" He whispers to his siblings.

"Aw yeah! We gotta celebrate!" Lynn says. "Chicken wings and fries! On Linka!"

"Why me?!"

"Thanks, Link. Let's just go." Loni says. The siblings leave the scene. Yet, Loni can still feel everyone staring at him.

Sometime later, at the food court, the siblings sit at two pushed tables together. Everyone had a soda except Leon who had a bottle of milk. Three baskets of wings and three baskets of fries laid out before them.

"We're proud of you, Loni." Lars says. "Now people will think twice before crossing you."

"We changed your life!" Lexx adds and raises his soda. "To us Louds!"

"Us Louds!" Everyone else raises and clinks their sodas. Loni does so too but with less enthusiasm.

"Dude, what's wrong?" Luke asks.

"I just… don't feel proud about what I just did back there. I did everything you guys taught me but I'm not satisfied. Say what you want about Stan and those guys, but they didn't deserve what happened to them. And seeing everyone else look at me like that… it was like, they were scared of me."

"Loni, don't overthink it." Linka reassures. "Even the sweetest of people have their limits. You did what any man who has been pushed too far would have done."

"And I'm sure nobody's really scared of you." Loki says. "Shock is more of the right word. But that'll blow over soon."

"I hope you guys are right."

The next day, Loni is back at the mall alone. During the bus ride here, his phone was blowing up with text messages and messages from his social media. All relating to, you guessed it, the fight. Clips of his aggressive performance were posted on social media. He knows somewhere people are reposting it and commenting on it as he's walking.

He normally responds to all his texts but he left them all on read. How is he supposed to respond to messages like "you were crazy!" or "Stan had it coming!" or "I thought you were the sweet one."

"What happened to don't post anything without the person's permission?" Loni says out loud. He decides to shut off his phone completely. He then goes into a department store. On the way inside, he bumps into a teen girl who was looking down at her phone.

"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry."

The girl gasps as she recognizes him from the video. "Uh. No, no, my fault. I'm- I'm so sorry." The girl walks around him slowly, not breaking eye contact with him.

"Are you sure you're ok?" Loni reaches his hand out to her. She yelps and sprints forward. Loni sighs heavily and walks inside. He was browsing through the men's jeans section when two boys recognize him.

"Woah! It is him! Hey, man!" They walk up to them. Loni turns to them.

"Hi!"

"You're that guy who brought Stan down!" Loni immediately frowns. "You were awesome!"

"Can you show us some moves?" The other boy asks.

"What's the big deal? I just did what anyone else would have done!"

"I don't know man," The first boy replies. "Not everyone would go insane like you did."

"So are you gonna teach us how you did it or what?" The second boy asks again.

Loni scoffs and turns toward the exit. "Leave me alone!"

"I'm not insane. I'm not scary." Loni reassures himself. "I'm still a good guy."

"Hey, you!" Loni stops dead in his tracks. He knows that voice. It's the chief of mall security. He drives and parks his golf cart next to the blonde.

"You gotta a lot of nerve showing your face here again." The chief tells him. "Let's get one thing straight kid: just because you got scott-free yesterday doesn't mean you're free to bully again. If I so much as hear about you harassing anybody, you're going downtown! To the mall holding jail, I mean."

Loni is flabbergasted. The chief never threatened him with mall jail before. "But. But sir, you know me! You know I'm not usually like what I was yesterday. Why would I do it again?"

"I don't know. But what I do know is that it's the nice ones you gotta look out for." He glares at him one last time before riding off.

Loni's shoulders slouch. "Why me?" With his hands in his pockets, he walks toward the frozen yogurt shop for comfort.

After he gets on the line, he sees a familiar redhead sitting with two other guys.

"Barry!" Loni calls out to him enthusiastically as he makes his way to his table. Barry and the other guys look uncomfortable as he sits with them.

"Oh my god! You wouldn't believe the day I had so far. Everyone is treating me like I'm dangerous! Me!"

"Uh, well. Maybe because you kinda are…" Barry says delicately. As if he's afraid of saying the wrong word that will piss him off.

Loni stares at him with wide eyes. "Not you, too."

"I didn't know what you were capable of until yesterday. Who knows when you'll get like that again. No disrespect, but I don't hang out with bullies."

"Dude! You know me! You know all my siblings! You know I'm the sweet one."

"Was the sweet one."

Loni slams his fists on the table. "I still am!"

The three boys visibly flinch at his exclamation. Several people turn heads toward him. Ashamed, Loni stands up and apologizes to the three guys. Avoiding all eye contact, he leaves the shop.

Back at the Loud House, the siblings were in the same spots as they were yesterday watching the same movie. Loni enters and immediately collapse on the armchair that's right of the sofa. He lets out a groan of exasperation.

"Are we ever going to finish this movie?" Lexx asks as Linka pauses the movie.

"What's wrong, bro?" Linka asks.

"Ever since that beating yesterday, people have been treating me different! And it's a bad different! People are either scared of me or they think I'm crazy! Security doesn't trust me! I ran into Barry today and he doesn't wanna hang out with me! I hate the new Loni! Why'd you guys drove the old Loni away in the first place!"

"Loni, we were looking out for you." Lars answers. "Not standing up for yourself and putting yourself last is how people like Stan take advantage of you."

"We wanted to make you tougher so nothing like what happened two days ago would ever happen again." Lexx says.

"We didn't mean to make people fear you." Linka says.

"I appreciate the concern but it made everything for me turn out for the worse." Loni sighs deeply and stands up. "I'll be in my room."

The next afternoon, Loni sits alone at a bench at the public park. His head in his hands as he rests his elbows on his knees. He knew he couldn't show his face at the mall again.

"How am I supposed to bring the old Loni back?"

He surveys the area with a sullen look in his eyes. Then he spots someone that causes him to sit up and rubs his eyes to make sure they won't playing tricks on him. A boy is sitting in the shadow of an oak tree all alone; he is also brooding. How did Loni not see him before?

"Stan?"

Stanley Hightower hasn't noticed that they're in the same area yet. The old Loni would walk up to him and try to make amends. And off he goes.

He sits on the ground next to Stan, being mindful of leaving space between them.

He taps his shoulder. "Uh, Stan?"

The raven-haired boy is startled by the sudden motion. Then groans at the blonde. He takes his headphones out. "Great, it's you. Came to rub it in?"

Stan appears better to say the least. His cheeks aren't swollen anymore, the blood on his lips harden over time leaving scabs and his left eye is opening and closing properly but is now a light purple.

"Why would I kick you while you're already down. I just want to say I'm sorry about what happened. I'm not usually like that but my siblings gassed me up… I'm really sorry."

"Wait. You defeated all four of us by yourself and you're apologizing?" Stan asks baffled.

"I don't expect you to forgive me right away."

"Why would you apologize to me anyway? You won and you got your revenge on me."

Loni looks back at his lap. "To be perfectly honest, I don't feel like a winner. I feel terrible for beating you and your friends up. I can't even blame my siblings for what happened that day. It's like, I lost all control and I couldn't stop. It doesn't help that everyone who saw it now sees me as a walking time bomb." He looks back at the other sixteen-year-old.

"I didn't mean to take it that far. I didn't even want revenge on you. Even after what you did. Like I said, you don't have to forgive me now but I forgive you." Loni stands up. "Well, I'll see you around." He starts walking away.

Stan stands up. "Loni, wait!"

Loni turns to face him with his jaw dropped. He called him by his real name. He was in new territory with the former bully.

"You can't just walk away when you did the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me."

"What's that?"

"You forgave me. Look, I understand where you're coming from. At the beginning of our junior year, I blacked out and beat the living crap out of a guy who wouldn't stop insulting my family. Ever since then, I was seen and treated like a threat and nothing else. Kyle, Eric, and Kenny went along for the ride so everybody knew they couldn't be messed with either. I discovered later on that I didn't have any real friends; nobody gave me another chance."

Loni walks back to him. "Wow. I bet if anybody heard you out, they would've seen you weren't that bad."

"I wanna put this behind us, too. I can't see a reason to be mad anyway. We're even. And I'm sorry about what I did." He holds out his hand.

"Don't worry about it. We're cool." Loni takes his hand and shakes it.

"Who knows? Maybe we can hang out from now on." Loni says.

"We can. Maybe people will treat you differently if we're seen together." Stan reassures him.

"You mean they will treat us differently, once they see how cool you are."

"So you forgave him?" Lynn asks. Loni was retelling what happened at the park to his siblings in the kitchen. Over slices of their father's apple pie.

"Yeah! I stood my ground, apologized to him and it worked. He's not that bad when you sit down with him."

"To be perfectly transparent, forgiving your enemies is the hardest obstacle a man could overcome." Levi says.

"Yeah, Loni. That was very mature of you." Linka says.

"And due to the fact that you came home unbruised, we don't have to worry about you after all." Luke says. Everyone else agrees with that statement.

"Thanks, guys! If there's a moral here-"

"Loni, don't tell us what you learn today." Linka says.

"Then who should I tell?" He asks genuinely confused.

"The readers."

"Oh right! Well readers, if there's a moral here, it's to trust your natural instincts. You'll never know if you're right if you don't."

"Can we finish that movie now?" Lexx whines. All eleven of them move to the living room.

AN: Yes, Stan and his friends are based on the boys from South Park. Thanks for reading!