26. Ch 26- Sibling Training Session

(A/N: hey, guys, just a quick notice this time- I'm working on an upcoming chapter, and I need ideas for Halloween costumes for the following characters:

Luan, Lucy, Lisa, Mollie, Joy, Sadie, Kat.

If any of you have any good ideas, please let me know- any I use, I will give a shout-out to in the chapter that these costumes are featured in.

Thank you for reading, and enjoy!)

"Okay, Linc," Lynn told her brother, having dragged him outside. The sixth grader was now in a white t-shirt and blue shorts. "I had a look online for what to focus on, since dodgeball ain't exactly my forte, but first I need to see what you can do." She then bent down to pick up a soccer ball. "I know this ain't a dodgeball, but it's the closest thing we have, so it'll do. Alright, first up, CATCH!"

She then caught him off guard by throwing the ball right at him with full force, and while he did try to catch it, he wasn't quick enough so it hit him square in the chest, making him stumble backwards and fall onto his butt. "Ugh…"

With a tired sigh, Lynn put her hands on her hips. "Okay… let's try it this way instead. Let's just play some catch with it. You throw it at me as if you're trying to get me out, okay?" With a nod, he got to his feet with the ball in his hands, arched his arm back and threw the ball at her, though Lynn was unamused as she caught it. "Really? That's all you've got, Linc? Come on, bro! Show me what you've got!" This spurred Lincoln on a little bit, leading to the throwing the ball back and forth for a good couple of minutes. While Lincoln was able to catch the ball a few times, he wasn't consistent, and would drop the ball almost as often as he caught it. His throws, however, never seemed to improve, being caught just as easily as the first throw. "Alright, that'll do for now,"she told him. "Now, go stand against the fence."

"Uh… Okay?" He obliged, walking over to the fence, and stood facing her. "What now?"

"Wait there a sec." She jogged over to the garage, leaving Lincoln to ponder what she was planning. He got his answer when she returned a moment later with a bag of soccer balls, which she poured out by her feet. "We've checked your throwing and catching, now just got to check your dodging."

Lincoln felt a bead of sweat form on his forehead. "Uh, wait a second…"

"Ready?!"

"Wait, maybe we should- aah!" He ducked to avoid the ball heading his way, which bounced off the metal fence and rolled back towards his sister.

"Come on, Linc! If you wanna get good at dodgeball, you need to be ready for anything!"

"I was only going to say you don't have a whistle!"

She stared at him for a few seconds, wondering what he was talking about, before it hit her. "Oh, right. Fine, I'll count down for you. Happy?" He nodded. "Alright. Three, two, one, go!"

With that, she started throwing the balls again, and Lincoln n to dodge them as best he could. While Lynn would on the odd two or three throws almost send it over the fence and get the balls caught in the trees that were behind it, her accuracy was pretty spot on, so the boy had his work cut out for the next few minutes. He didn't do bad at first, only getting hit on the arm a couple of times and once on his leg, but after the first minute, Lynn's relentless barrage of balls was wearing him out, so his dodges became less and less as he got hit more and more, with one to his gut driving the wind out of him. He wasn't entirely sure when she planned to stop, until he heard someone speak up.

"Lynn!" They turned to see Luna say as she approached with a stern look. "I thought mom told you that you couldn't force Lincoln into your training if he didn't want to!"

"I know, and I didn't force him!"

The rocker crossed her arms. "Oh, so our lil' bro just 'volunteered' to have you throw balls at him?"

"Luna, it's… it's okay," Lincoln told her, taking the opportunity to catch his breath. "Lynn's helping me… train for dodgeball."

"Really?" She asked with a raised eyebrow, and he nodded in response. "My bad. Still, go easy on him, Lynn. Also, I need to practice, so try not to use the garage as a backboard."

"Yeah, yeah, sure," Lynn replied in a half assed way, making her older sister roll her eyes as she walked away. "Alright, Linc, ready to begin training?"

"I thought that was the training?!" He exclaimed, exasperated.

"Nah, that was just a warm up test. Lets me know what I'm working with, and gets the blood pumping. Now, come on. We'll grab some water on the way."

A few minutes later, the two rehydrated Louds were back in the basement. "Okay, Linc- honesty time," Lynn told her brother. "What I saw out there before… it wasn't great. You've got the basic idea, but not much more than that."

Although Lincoln wasn't surprised, since he wasn't actually doing dodgeball, he did still feel a little bit sad by this. "Yeah…"

"Still, everyone starts somewhere, and this just happens to be where you're starting. Now, looking online, seems the three main areas we need to work on are your footwork, your arm strength and your agility. You also need to have good reflexes, but I think you're okay in that area."

"Living in this house, you kind of have to," he joked, making them share a laugh for a few seconds. "Okay. So, where do we start?"

She smiled. "Not backing down, huh? Good to know. Alright, let's work on your arms first." She kneeled down in front of her weight bench and reached underneath it, pulling out two dumbbells. "Gonna start with some curls. Take these." She held them out to him and he took them in his hands, though the second that she let go, he felt the full force of their weight drop, causing him to fall forward. As he got up, Lynn pressed the palm of her hand into her face. "Okay… should've seen that coming. One second." She took the dumbbells again and lightened the weight on them, halving the weight of each. "Alright, try these now."

He took them once more, this time tensing his muscles to try avoid dropping them. When she let go this time, he found the weights were more tolerable, but he could still feel the weight. "Okay, that works."

"Alright, now you're going to do what I do. Okay?" He nodded and watched as his sister grabbed two more dumbbells, noticing how they had more weight on them than his but not complaining. She stood next to him and began to curl the weights, alternating arms. "You don't want to go too fast, and you need to control it as you re-extend your arm. Got it?"

"I think so."

She then stopped for a second as she watched her brother curl the weights, taking notice of how he lowered the weights. "There you go, not bad. We'll keep this up for about a minute, and then move on, okay?" He nodded, and the two continued to work on their curls, with Lynn encouraging him when he seemed to slow down, before Lincoln and Lynn put their weights down. "Alright, Linc, not a bad start. Now, come on." She led him towards the bench. "So, since you're a beginner, let's start with ten kilos, and see how you do, okay?"

"Alright." She lightened the load on the bar, then took it off its rest. "So, what am I doing here?"

"Lie down on the bench so you're facing down," she instructed, her brother giving her a confused look in response. "Come on, just trust me." With a shrug, he obliged, lying on the bench as she asked. "Okay. What you're gonna do is take the bar in both hands," she gave him the bar so he was holding it underneath with his arms straight, "and you're gonna lift it up so it's in front of you."

"Like this?"

She watched as her brother bended his arms so that it was closer to his chest, making her shake her head. "No, not like that. Gimme." She took the weight from him, making him look at her. "Imagine I'm lying on the bench right now, okay? You wanna do it like this." She held the bar out in front of her with arms straightened, then lifted it so it was above her head, then lowered it to the original position, before repeating it two more times. "You get it now?"

"I think so," he replied as he took the weights again. "So, like this."

He got back into position, then held the bar close to the ground with his arms straight, then lifted the bar to the point where his arms were out past his head, before lowering it to the starting position. "That's more like it, yeah. Just remember, keep your arms straight and control the descent. You should move your arms down just as fast as you move them up. Since you're new to this, I'll spot you."

"Spot me?"

"Yeah, just keep going, and I'll help you out. Give me fifteen reps, okay?"

"Okay." So, he continued working, with Lynn calling out when he need to lift or lower the bar to help him maintain a steady rhythm. He did slow down towards the end, but she expected that from a first timer, so she just made sure he completed the exercise. "Okay, good work, bro. Take a minute to let your muscles rest, and we'll get on with your workout."

"Okay." After standing up from the bench, she saw Lynn take the bar and sit down on the bench, resting the bar on her feet. "Uh, Lynn? What are you doing?"

She smirked at her brother. "What do you think? I've been taking it easy for three weeks. Need to make sure my legs haven't gone soft."

He simply chuckled. "Do you want me to spot you?"

"… eh, sure, why not."

So, the two continued to workout. After about thirty minutes of working with Lincoln on his arm strength the two went outside, where Lynn worked with him on his footwork. She instructed him to do an assortment of ladder drills, moving sideways, forward, backward and in any manner Lynn could think of, throwing her soccer balls at him to 'keep him motivated' by 'simulating a dodgeball experience'. After she accidentally hit him square in the face and unintentionally making him trip on the ladder, though, they took a water break and packed up the stuff before Lynn led him on a ten minute jog to the park and back, which her competitive nature turned into a race, and by the end he was completely shattered. As she led her brother into the house, she turned around and called out, "you alright, Linc?"

He followed behind her, panting and dripping with sweat. "Y-Yeah, I'm… I'm okay," he replied, closing the door behind him. "I thought… you said we… were just… jogging?"

She shrugged. "Eh, I got bored. Come on, let's grab a protein shake." The two then went into the kitchen, where the middle schooler grabbed a bag of protein powder and poured some into a blender, then peeled a banana and threw it in with some cocoa powder and some milk. After blending it for about thirty seconds, she turned off the blender and poured the shake into two glasses, handing one to her brother. "Cheers." They clinked their glasses together, then drunk from them, with Lynn downing it in one. Whilst she was satisfied with it, she saw Lincoln wasn't totally enjoying it. "Yeah, they aren't great at first, but you get used to it."

"I guess," he muttered, before taking another drink. "The banana does help, though."

"Yep. So, I gotta say, you didn't do bad today."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Sure, you weren't perfect, but you don't have to be. Give it a few weeks and you'll get the hang of it."

"Thanks, Lynn. Honestly, I don't know how you do it. I mean, you have… ten different sports you do- how do you train for so many sports?"

She scoffed, before replying, "I don't do that many sports, bro. I do football, lacrosse, ice hockey, basketball, roller derby, soccer, soft- er… well, you know. And I also do wrestling, but that's more a self defense thing. And I don't do them all at once. Lacrosse and football are in the summer, ice hockey's at winter, soccer and you-know-what are in spring, and basketball is… well, I would be doing that at the moment if it weren't for… well, you know."

"Yeah, sorry about that," he added with a frown.

"Eh, it happens. Anyway, I don't train as much for roller derby or ice hockey, since I get pretty much all the training I need at practice, but I keep active outside of practice to keep strong. As for the other stuff, it all kind of overlaps in what I need to train. I mean, I need to work on my upper body more for basketball and lacrosse, and more on my lower body for soccer, but they all demand that I keep active."

"I'll bet! Honestly, I couldn't imagine being able to the stuff you do in your games."

"Well, that's because, A- I'm older, and B- I've been training for some of these sports for a good few years." She put a hand on his shoulder. "Look, don't let my abilities influence your training. If you want to get better at it, then you will if you keep putting in the effort. You know what you're doing more than I do."

He couldn't help but smile. "Thanks, Lynn."

"No problem, bro."

The two hugged each other, releasing a few seconds later with smiles on their faces. "Well, hopefully I can take it easy for a bit."

"LINCOLN! WHERE ARE YOU!"

Lynn immediately burst out laughing at Lola's timely call, while Lincoln simply deadpanned. "Of course she needs me now…"

"Hey, better you than me," Lynn teased, receiving a sarcastic laugh in response before he left.