Chaos Commences

Isaac grinned ecstatically as he along with Stripe, Mohawk, Prank, Pom-Pom and Edgar rode Mr Grouse's mower down the street. The now brainy gremlin had given Stripe directions on where to go, but not before they make a quick stop.

"Right here, Stripe. I believe we've kept our brothers waiting long enough." he pointed as the McBride house came into view before they pulled up outside the abode, ignoring the terrified Howard and Harold who'd barricaded themselves inside their own car with Cleopawtra and Nepurrtiti.

"I don't think even Dr Lopez will be able to help us get over this nightmare." Howard whimpered hugging Cleopawtra close as Isaac went to knock on the door. A second later it opened to reveal a sickly green gremlin with thick lips and a permanent frown.

"Evening, Maurice. You're looking well." Isaac greeted him. "As are you, Roger." He added when Maurice was joined by a tall brown gremlin with droopy ears and large buck teeth.

"I see you've been having fun, but we have work to do. I guess you could say it's time to go to school." the brainy gremlin smirked. Though he wasn't nearly as smart as his mutated brother, Maurice got the hint of Isaac's intentions as he smirked back at him before he grunted at Roger and pointed to the mower. The goofy gremlin nodded before he went to join the others. But at that moment the familiar screech of Vanzilla's tyres reached their ears as the vehicle rounded the corner.

"Uh-oh. Looks like our former owners are on the chase." Isaac muttered irritated. Stripe glared at them as he hopped down from the vehicle and ran over the house, reaching into a backpack he'd stolen from the Loud House before pulling out a can of hairspray and a lighter. Isaac and Maurice wisely stepped back before Stripe, laughing maniacally, set loose a torrent of flames from the can upon the McBride house setting one of the outer walls alight.

The Louds, McBrides and Santiagos gasped in horror as Lynn Sr. brought the van to a stop while the gremlins set off again.

"Your move, humans!" Isaac jeered as they fled.

"Quick, put out the fire before it destroys our house!" Harold panicked, Howard having fainted from the shock.

"But we can't let them get away!" Leni said wringing her hands. Lincoln thought for a moment before he tossed his phone to his Dad and handed Lily to his Mother.

"Dad, you and Mom call the fire department and help the McBride's contain the blaze; we'll stop the gremlins."

"No! Those demons tried to kill you last time. I'm not about to let my babies go up against them." Rita argued.

"As long as we have flashlights they can't attack us." Lincoln reassured holding one of the torches.

"Lincoln's right. The longer we wait here the further they get to whatever they're trying to accomplish." Lori agreed. "And don't worry, I'll watch the twins and Lisa."

"And I'll stick with Nie-Nie, Lincoln and Clyde. We'll keep them safe, Mrs L and Mr McBs." Bobby added to the parents.

"I must concur with them, Mother. Isaac stole a number of formulas from my room which in the wrong hands could prove very dangerous. And he knows where to find more so we must stop them posthaste." Lisa insisted. Rita looked to her husband who was currently giving the fire brigade their location while Harold was trying to wake Howard. Knowing how stubborn her children were the matriarch sighed with frustration.

"If you're going after them stick together and keep each other safe or so help me I'll ground you for life. That includes you kids as well." She added to Clyde, Bobby and Ronnie who nodded nervously.

"We promise, Mom. We'll be alright." Lori smiled as Lily whined worriedly.

"Oh it's ok, Lily. Everything's gonna be fine." Lincoln kissed his baby sister's cheek. "We're gonna teach those little monsters a lesson."

"Yeah! Especially for ripping your blanky." Ronnie Anne grinned which made Lily perk up as she pumped her tiny fist in the air.

"Ge 'em!" She babbled as the kids piled into the van and went after the gremlins as Rita watched them go.

"Morning can't come soon enough." She said.

XXX

"Not much further now, lads." Isaac assured as the school came into view over the horizon. "Once I have ahold of Lisa's research I can put our plan into action. In the meantime you can all have some fun in our new playground." The other gremlins cackled with excitement before their glee was interrupted by a honking. They looked back to see Vanzilla coming after them. Mohawk snarled as he saw the kids glaring at them.

"Persistent shaved apes." Isaac sniffed before opening the attaché case and taking out a vial of black liquid with a winged symbol on it. "Edgar, my friend, might I have a word?"

"Just why would they want to go to the school?" Lynn asked as they chased after the gremlins. "There's nothing of use to them there."

"Maybe not to them, but there is for Isaac." Lisa answered. "Now that he's as intelligent as me and in possession of my research notes he knows where to find The other formulas I've been developing or have developed."

"You play with chemicals in kindergarten?!" Lori asked aghast.

"I have to occupy myself with something while I'm there!" The mad scientist rebuked before the gang looked back to see Edgar standing on the back of the mower, the vial in his paw.

"What the heck is he doing?" Clyde questioned before Edgar downed the contents of the vial and gagged, wrapping his arms around himself as he convulsed. Suddenly a pair of enormous leathery wings burst from his back and his ears doubled in size, his nose upturning and a pair of fangs growing from his upper lip. The kids stared at his transformation in shock, except for Lucy who stared in amazement.

"He's...a vampire!" She cried out, a hint of astonished glee escaping her usual monotone.

"He must have taken my vampire bat dna!" Lisa deduced whilst Lori looked at her in incredulously.

"What use could you possibly have for bat DNA?!"

"To develop a cure for rabies if you must know."

"Do you think you could make another for me?" Her goth sister asked eagerly.

"It wasn't supposed to have these sort of effects. Yet another anomaly involving these creatures." The conversation couldn't continue however as Edgar sprang from the mower and flew at Vanzilla, landing on its windscreen like an overgrown bug. The kids screamed as he screeched at them, Lori instinctively turning on the wipers only for him to rip them off and begin beating the glass with them.

"Someone do something!" Luan cried as the van began to swerve violently from the obstruction.

"That should keep them busy for a while. Full speed ahead, everyone!" Isaac cheered as the gremlins rode onward. Lori continued to regaine control of the van as Edgar scuttled across the roof of the vehicle, peering through one of the passenger windows.

"There's a gremlin on the side of van!"

"We're well aware of that, Leni!" Lola replied in equal panic.

"No! I mean that one! It's hideous!" Leni pointed to the opposite window where the gang saw a small green car driving in the other lane. Needless to say, the driver couldn't believe what they were seeing causing their car to careen into a lamppost.

"I think you're worrying about the wrong gremlin here, Leni!" Lori shouted before she yelped as Edgar's claw suddenly burst through the radio swiping at her.

"He's inside the engine!" Lana screamed as the van's engine began to violently choke and spark. "She's gonna blow!" Lana's judgement was all they needed as Lori hit the brakes bringing the van to a grinding halt.

"Everyone out now!" She ordered as the gang hastily evacuated the vehicle just before the van exploded in a ball of fire forcing the kids to hit the ground.

"Is everyone ok?!" Lincoln called out to his sisters and friends who answered back with mixed levels of terror over how close they'd come to being blown up. A sinister laugh filled the air as Edgar flew out from under the fiery wreck like a literal bat out of hell, taking off into the night leaving the gang alone.

"Well it looks like we're going on foot from here." Lynn muttered.

"You can't be serious! We almost went up in smoke cause of those little monsters! Who knows what else they're capable of?!" Lola whimpered. Gizmo chirped as he poked his head out of Lana's backpack. He pointed to the flaming remains of Vanzilla and then to the town before shaking his fuzzy head.

"Gizmo's right! If we don't stop those gremlins the whole town's gonna end up like Vanzilla." Lana said.

"So let's go! The school isn't much farther." Lori commanded as the group (though some members reluctant)

"And just how are we supposed to deal with them when we catch up? Find more microwaves to stuff 'em into?!" Ronnie Anne asked sarcastically.

"An effective weapon, but I believe the best method is to trap them and when the sun comes up we vaporise them." Lisa suggested. A few minutes later the group had reached the school to find the front door broken down and Mr Grouse's mower (or what was left of it) parked in the doorway.

"Alright everyone, let's get those gremlins." Lincoln declared as the group turned on their flashlights and began to search the building. They hadn't wandered far when they heard a clattering nearby and what sounded like a lock being picked.

"Guys? Where does this hallway lead to again?" Lori asked her middle school siblings.

"That would be in the direction of the gym, eldest sibling." Lisa confirmed before her eyes widened in sudden realisation. "Where the training pool is located next door to it."

"They're gonna multiply!" Clyde squawked.

"Come on! We have to hurry! Or we're gonna be having a real bad time!" Luna said as the group sped off towards the gym, unaware that in their growing panic they'd ran past Lisa's kindergarten room which slowly opened to reveal Isaac and Mohawk watching them from behind with wicked glee.

"Hm-Hm-Hm. Fools." The latter chuckled darkly before he sauntered over to Lisa's desk where he found a stack of formulas in her drawer. He reached in a picked up one in particular which he stared at with great excitement.

"Be prepared, big brother of mine." he said to Mohawk. "Because come tomorrow morning this world will be ready for the new dominant species." He grinned at the title of the document: GENETIC SUNBLOCK FORMULA

XXX

Meanwhile, the kids had reached the gym hall only to once again find the door had already been broken into, though the door to pool hadn't been as they saw the remaining gremlins gathered around it, Pom-Pom who was trying to pick the lock with one of her quills.

"Stop them! Don't let them get in the pool!" Lori instructed as the gang ran at the five gremlins, torches flashing at them. The little monsters screeched at the bright light and scattered like roaches as the kids chased them around the gym. Lynn ran over to the supply cupboard before taking out a few lacrosse nets and tossing them to the others.

"Here! We'll use these to catch them!" She suggested.

"Good idea, Lynn!" Clyde praised as he tried to scoop up Maurice, when Roger suddenly leapt onto Clyde's shoulders and began pulling his hair allowing Maurice to get away.

"Get off him, buck-tooth!" Lynn snapped as she took a swing at Roger with a hockey stick knocking him off Clyde (though the gremlin took a handful of hair with him).

Lori swung wildly as she chased after Stripe, but just before she was about to nab him something tripped her up sending her skidding across the floor. She looked back to see her ankles tied up with a jump rope and Prank was cackling at her, a tennis racket clutched in his paw and juggling some balls in the other.

"Take cover!" The eldest Loud yelled to the others as the jokester gremlin began pelting balls in all directions with his racket. Lincoln skidded to a halt as one narrowly missed his head, embedding itself in the gym wall.

"Holy schmoly! How strong is his swing?!" He gaped as Prank served another ball at him which Luna batted back with her guitar.

"This guy could give both Lynn AND Luan a run for their money." She muttered.

"Well no way am I gonna be showed up by a gremlin!" Lynn declared.

"That makes two of us!" Luan added as they tried to go after Prank only to find themselves caught in a goal net dropped on them by Maurice and Roger.

"Dang it they're too fast!" Bobby cursed as the gremlins continued to give them the runaround until a sudden loud click silenced the gym. Everyone looked to see, in the midst of all the madness, Pom-Pom had managed to sneak back to the door and successfully picked the lock. She grinned wickedly before pushing the door open. Her brothers screeched with excitement as they made a dash for the pool.

"They're gonna get away!" Leni panicked as the kids fumbled for her flashlight, but Stripe saw it coming. In a flash of green he whirled around and with his sharp claws, slashed Leni across her stomach. The kids stopped dead as Leni let out a scream and fell to the floor, clutching her wound.

"LENI!" They cried out as they ran to turn her over. They could see three red cuts through the shredded part of her dress but she was still conscious, though moaning with pain.

"Don't worry, it's only a minor laceration of the flesh; street name, 'scratch'. We just have to disinfect and bind it." Lisa reassured the others as they helped Leni up when reality suddenly dawned on the little genius. "They did it to distract us!"

Everyone looked up and gasped as the five gremlins stood before the edge of the pool. They turned on the spot to face the humans with victorious grins.

"NO!" Gizmo squealed before they leapt into the air and back flipped into the water with a mighty splash. The kids stood frozen in horror as the pool began to bubble and steam like a hot spring, flashes of red and green bursting beneath the surface as garbled laughs and screeches echoed throughout the gym.

For deep within the pool, the gremlins were writhing in elated agony as huge pustular growths began to form on their backs before smaller gremlins popped out of the blisters so they could grow to full size and multiply themselves. The kids felt movement in their bodies again as dozens of clawed hands rose from the bubbling bath to grip the pool's edge.

"...Run." Was all Lori could whisper in fear as the gang fled from the gym, their mission a complete and total failure.

XXX

After exiting the school in a panic, the Louds, Santiagos and McBride ran as fast as they could back to their parents' locations.

"Not that I'm expecting an answer, but just how many of those things Do you think there are now?" Ronnie Anne asked.

"Well considering it only took a splash from the sink for one second to produce eleven from Gizmo and those five completely submerged themselves in water." Lisa began to wildly calculate the odds in her head. "5 times 11-added-to-increase-in-water volume...multiplied-by-added-time-underwater..." The four year old clutched her head, her face fraught with terror.

"1,000,000 gremlins." She determined much to shock of the others. "At least." She added.

"A million?" Lori repeated, her eye twitching. "The town's about to be invaded by at least one million little monsters." A chuckle of fear escaped her lips, her eyes dilated. "Well guys, looks we're moving house."

"What?! We don't wanna move!" The twins cried as Lincoln hugged them.

"Nobody's going anywhere." He assured. "We just need to come up with a plan. There may be loads more of them now, but they still have the same weakness: sunlight. Once morning comes in ten hours, they'll all be exposed."

"Of course! All we gotta do is hold out against them for ten hours and then Mr Sun'll fry they're scaly butts!" Lynn understood.

"If we can last that long." Lucy said. "One of them's a vampire now and another's as smart as Lisa." At that moment Lisa suddenly remembered.

"Everyone. I don't think sunlight will be they're proverbial Achilles heel by sun up."

"Huh? What're you talking about, brah?" Luna asked. "In just a few hours here comes the sun and I say it's alright."

"Not if they're immune to it by then."

"Immune?" Leni asked. "Wait you mean like sunscreen could protect them or something?"

"Close but no, Leni. I'm afraid it's worse."

"Shut up and get to the point!" Lola demanded.

"You know I work on formulas here." Lisa reminded the group. "Well one of them I developed...was genetic sunblock." Everyone stared at her in disbelief.

"Genetic...sunblock?" Clyde's murmured.

"I wanted to eradicate the threats of sunburn, sunstroke and melanoma." Lisa explained. "It's only on paper right now but with his newfound intelligence, should Isaac complete the chemical formula..."

"It would only take one to get away and get wet again." Lincoln concluded. "And then they could take over the whole town; the country, no! THE WHOLE WORLD!"

"Lincoln, you're spiralling!" Clyde held him by the shoulders. "That's my shtick and you're the man with the plan, so pull yourself together."

"He's right, Stinkoln. It's like you said, we just need a new plan so let's hear it." Lynn added. The one son ruffled his hair as he wracked his brain for a strategy before he spoke.

"Well we can't let Isaac distribute that formula, to himself or the other gremlins. We need to kill him first before he does and the sun can finish of the rest of them. But now he has an army between us and him."

"So then how do we get from the twilight zone to the sunlight shone?" Luan quipped.

"...We need to get the military."

"Call the army?! That's your plan, Lame-O?!" Ronalda said in disbelief. "Oh sure, that call will go swimmingly. Ring-Ring! 'Hi, is that the Head of Defence? Yeah, our town's under attack by little green men.' You might as well wear a tin foil hat to make it complete!"

"Now hold on, Nie-Nie. maybe we don't need to tell them exactly how it is." Bobby rubbed his chin. "We could report it as an attack though; we wouldn't be lying."

"Yes exactly, thank you, Bobby." Lincoln praised. "Lori ring them up, on the double." His big sister nodded and dialled the number only for the tone to drag out.

"Huh?" She looked at her phone and screamed.

"What?! What is it?!" Leni asked.

"No service!" Lori whimpered presenting her cell which displayed the same words.

"But that's impossible! We're nowhere near out of range." Lisa said before Lucy gasped.

"Edgar." She whispered.

"What about him?" Lisa asked back.

"He can fly and has heightened senses now. What if Isaac told him to go find the Royal Woods cell phone tower?" The others gasped.

She was not wrong. For not too far away the vampire gremlin was perched atop the town's cell phone array...or what was left of it as he'd managed to destroy every piece he could manage.

"That winged rat!" Lori screeched. "How am I gonna stay in contact with you when this is all over, Boo-Boo Bear?!"

"There's always the landline, right?" Bobby tried to reassure her.

"That's it!" Lincoln said. "We'll go to police and have them call the military!"

"If they'll believe us, bro." Luna reminded him. "What evidence do we have?"

"...Right in Lana's backpack." Lincoln pointed as Gizmo peeked out of the little grease monkey's bag.

"No! We said we wouldn't tell anyone about Gizmo!" Lana hugged him close.

"It's the only way, Lana! They'll never believe us otherwise. Don't worry, once they see how friendly he is they won't hurt him."

"As risky as it is, Lincoln's right." Lori agreed. "If we show them Gizmo, they'll have to believe us about the gremlins. Then once the army come we go after Isaac and just make sure to keep Gizmo hidden from them. As long as they don't find him they'll only think the gremlins are real. I'm sure we can convince the cops not to rat him out when they see what a sweetheart he is."

Lana glanced at Gizmo, still unconvinced, before he nodded at her showing her approved the plan.

"Ok, Giz, if you're on board so am I." She said.

"Then let's do it. Next stop, Royal Woods Police department! Provided our folks agree to go along with the plan." Lincoln declared as the team set off.

Back at the school the lights flickered in the silent hallways before Stripe stepped out of the front entrance, his scales glistening from his recent swim. His red eyes swivelled over the town as he viewed his new playground with great excitement before he called out to his siblings in his gibberish tongue.

As he did so an army of shadows came scrambling behind him before flooding out of the school; A million green and brown gremlins all chattering and hissing poured out into the streets with Stripe, Maurice, Roger, Pom-Pom and Prank leading the charge. The invasion had begun.

To be continued...

Yes, it's a miracle. My writing is still alive. I can't say anything that won't sound like an excuse but they are true. Real life has been a major distraction for me lately, mainly because I've been unemployed for four months now (don't worry I'm not in any financial trouble) but ironically all that free time has been bad for my writing since too much of a good thing can cause major burnout. Luckily I've been getting more active in volunteering and learning to drive so now that my schedules more full it helps my drive.

Plus now that I've got the setup complete it's now complete chaos from here on out for Royal Woods, which is why the next chapter will be much bigger than this one. If you have any ideas on how, where and who the gremlins should torment before Isaac puts his plan into action, fire away and I'll include them any way I can.

Thank you all so much for your patience and support and it's good to have my muse again.

Loud House belongs to Chris Savino and Nickelodeon
Gremlins belongs to Joe Dante