Echo Online 2

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  “‘Daddy’?” Sam half-slurred with a smirk, “Not ‘Mommy’ or ‘Queen’?”

  “First one’s kinda weird, second one’s kinda pretentious, Sam.” Frostiey replied amusedly, briefly shocking Sam with the fact that the Elf-like fey knew her name, “Anyway, down to… Oh no…”

  “What?” I sighed, my voice unintentionally melancholy as another wave of dread and sadness crashed over me.

  “You didn’t get that from Jake, did you?” Frostiey asked concernedly with a nod to the pitcher.

  “Well, there’s only one bar down here…” I replied sullenly, completely ignorant of the worry clearly painted across Frostiey’s face.

  “Godda-Jake!” Frostiey shouted across the room as she leaned out of the booth, “Could I get some water over here?”

  “What’s wrong with the vodka?” Jane asked, her voice as equally sullen as mine.

  “Nothing too bad,” Frostiey quickly clarified as she waited for Jake to come over with a fresh pitcher and then wander off again, “just a little… enchantment.”

  Naturally, I wasn’t all too fond of the idea of getting spiked with mystic roofies, “What kind of enchantment?”

  “Just a little something to…” Frostiey trailed off before making sure Jake was out of earshot and then leaning over the table, “It’s Jake’s favorite drink, his only drink really, and after his last little mistake, I went ahead and decided to ruin it for him. Basically it’s just a curse for melancholy, only lasts for as long as you drink, plus or minus ten minutes.”

  “So you’re a sorceress then?” I asked, glazing over the fact that I’d been drinking sad juice for the last ten minutes.

  “Among other things,” Frostiey replied before muttering an incantation and making the water glow a faint gold, “drink that and you’ll feel better. Anyway, yes, I do the whole magic thing, but I kind of prefer guns and stuff that goes ‘boom’.”

  “I can respect that,” Jane agreed, “it’s all well and good to vaporize someone, but nothing gets your message across quite like a rotary grenade launcher.”

  “Exactly.” Frostiey said with a nod, “There’re benefits to having the ability to enchant stuff, and some of them don’t even have anything to do with screwing with Jake. For instance, I hear you have a knife.”

  The statement threw me for a moment, but I eventually managed a nod, “Dave, yes.”

  “Well, would you mind if I borrowed him for a moment?” the Gathlain asked, putting her hand out expectantly.

  “Um…” I trailed off as my hand instinctively found Dave’s handle, “yes?”

  “I promise I’ll get it-him back to you,” Frostiey said reassuringly, “and I guarantee you’ll be happy with the result.”

  Typically I didn’t trust people who used the word ‘guarantee’ before taking my stuff, although there was something about that moment that made me slightly more susceptible to wanting to avoid conflict.

  Depression, that’s what it was.

  “It’ll only be for moment,” Frostiey continued, “and by the time I’m done, you’ll have had a chance to talk to Lleyton and gotten a feel for him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sam interjected, “but the only thing we’ve learned about you is that you poison people for a laugh and like guns.”

  “A, I only poison Jake for a laugh, everyone else down here knows not to have the vodka, and B… Okay, fair enough, but do you really need to know that much about me before doing whatever it is that you want to do?” Frostiey asked before furrowing her brow, pulling her hand back, and chuckling, “Alright, so you have a point. Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for me to find out what it is that brought you here, either.”

  “Frank didn’t tell you?” I asked after finally pouring what was left of my vodka into the pitcher and getting myself some of the magic water.

  “He told me that he figured you’d want to size me up before looping me in,” Frostiey replied with a shrug, “I would’ve pressed, but I really didn’t want to dick this up.”

  I kind of felt like all of that could’ve been said earlier, but at the same time I understood where she was coming from, especially after having a sip of that invigorating, cheerful juice that tasted weirdly like lime cordial.

  So, after deciding to go ahead and down the entirety of my drink, I cleared my throat and smiled, “Okay, basically we need to get out of the city and back to Alcatraz. Us being public enemies number one, two, and three hinders our ability to do so.”

  “And I’m assuming you’ve heard about the anti-air rigs they’ve got…” Frostiey murmured, “Well, you’re in luck. See, me and my girls, which includes those Gathlain over there and pretty much all the strippers upstairs, specialize in screwing with the Hallowed Kings’ operations.”

  “How so?” Sam practically gurgled, having joined me in chugging the sobering magic water.

  “Demolition mostly,” Frostiey replied happily, “but also sowing disloyalty among the halos ranks, nabbing information where we can, and just generally giving them a hard time. What all that means is I know which docks, and the AA therein, that are the most susceptible to attack.”

  “Any particular reason you haven’t blown ‘em to Hell already?” I asked amusedly.

  “Because all that would achieve is them bolstering their defenses,” Frostiey explained, “we want them to think that they don’t have to worry about those placements. It makes it so that when a situation like this pops up we have options.”

  Not going to lie, the degree to which she’d thought through everything made me feel somewhat inadequate as a leader, but that feeling only lasted long enough for me to down another glass.

  “Alright, then we attack the weakest one, get back home, and…” I trailed off, worrying for just a moment that I couldn’t trust her, before continuing on like nothing happened, “do the dome thing.”

  “Do… the dome thing?” Frostiey asked, “What do you mean?”

  “To be perfectly honest with you, I have no idea,” I replied confidently, “but if it’s anything like what Carl managed to pull off, I’ll be happy, as I’m sure everyone who doesn’t enjoy being under the halos’ boot heel will agree.”

  Frostiey appeared to be impressed with that, or maybe she was proud of how effective her drink had been, either way she was happy, and I was happy, and we were all happy.

  Seriously, whatever we were drinking gave me Kiefer Sutherland tackling a Christmas tree levels of joy and confidence.

  “Well, I’m happy with how all this has panned out.” I said as I pulled Dave out and set him on the table, “Sam, Jane, any concerns?”

  “Nothing springs to mind.” Jane replied, clearly surprised at my handing over Dave, “Far as I’m concerned, the more allies, the bett-”

  “I have a concern,” Dave interjected as Frostiey picked him up, “that being why the fuck are you just handing me over to this fairy-looking motherfucker?”

  “Feisty, isn’t he?” Frostiey practically giggled, looking over Dave’s handle and blade, “Don’t worry, little guy, when I’m through with you you’ll be ten times the killing machine you are now.”

  “I am not a machine, I am a knife.” Dave snapped, “Tell her, Buck.”

  “Hey, I only want you to be the best that you can be.” I said with a smirk, glad to have someone who didn’t jump the first time the foul-mouthed blade opened his telepathic equivalent of a mouth.

  “This is fucking bullshit.” Dave barked, “If anything, you should be carving up and mystifying Dopey the Dipshit Demon over there.”

  “There’s not going to be any carving,” Frostiey said reassuringly before shuffling out of the booth and giving us a quick look, “I assume we’re done here for now? You know, ‘til you can talk to the ICU boys?”

  “Yep,” I replied, “then we can get down to the real shit. Good luck with him.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I won’t need it.” Frostiey chuckled as she walked off to the other Gathlain.

  “I like her,” Jane remarked giddily be
fore looking down at her glass, “but that may have something to do with the magical ecstasy she put in our drinks…”

  “Better than the crap she was giving that Jake dude,” I replied before looking around and finding Frank in the corner with another, heavily armored group, “send over the next one!”

  28

  Let me tell you, it felt great to be back on top of the world, emotionally speaking, and even though there was definitely a sense of rubber banding with my brain chemistry, I was confident that it would make the following interview-type thingy kick off a bit smoother than the last.

  “Good to meet you, Buck,” a tall, green dragon-looking man said as he sat across from us with another equally tall but dark red dragon, “my name is Lleyton, and this is Mercy.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Mercy added, tapping his fingers on his knees to the music.

  With them up close, I was finally able to get a good look at their armor, and while they both shared a militaristic ‘ICU’ brand across the chest, it was clear that they had made them individually with separate components.

  “Jane,” Jane said after giving me a few significant looks that I’d missed while looking over the dragons, “and that’s Sam, and we’re looking for a way to get back to Alcatraz.”

  “Yeah, no, that’s really more of a Frostiey thing,” Lleyton chuckled, “but I assume she’s already talked to you about that given how quiet she’s being with her girls. With that being said, there’s a lot we can offer you after you get back home.”

  “Specifically?” I asked, having finally screwed my head back on.

  “We’ve got cells all over the city, some of which have been organized with the help of your boys over on the forums,” Lleyton explained, “so, when it comes time for a fight, we’ll be there, and in great numbers.”

  “And are all of you..?” Sam trailed off as she struggled to find the words.

  “Dragonborn,” Mercy finished with a nod, “for the most part, yes. With the exception of Mossmo and his little band of lost boys. They’re some kind of Vampire-Demon hybrid.”

  “Point is that we are willing and able to help you kick the Hallowed Kings where it hurts,” Lleyton said, getting the conversation back on track, “Hell, we’ve probably got enough of a force to give them a beating as is.”

  “So why don’t you?” I asked, “I mean, I get it if you don’t want to lose your hidey holes, but if you’ve got the numbers you say you do…”

  “The truth is that we wouldn’t be able to break the footholds that the halos have,” Lleyton explained, “sure, we’d be able to force them to take cover in their hotels and whatnot, but that would be it. We need whatever nuke you’re rocking around with to be able to win this thing.”

  “You know about that?” Jane asked with genuine surprise, “How?”

  “Wasn’t too hard to put the pieces together once we heard about what you were doing both on the island and here with the magic light monster thing.” Mercy chuckled, “I’m just surprised that the Hallowed Kings haven’t figured it out yet.”

  “What makes you so sure they haven’t?” I huffed with a mix of amusement and concern.

  “Because if they had, there’d be some kind of massively massive reward out for your heads, as well as a whole swarm of fresh patrols,” Lleyton replied, “my best guess is they assume you were trying to control that mystic snake thing so you could use it against the halos.”

  “That’s… not a bad idea actually.” Sam murmured before clearing her throat and sitting up, “But anyway, to circle back, what you guys can offer us is a complementary force?”

  “Exactly,” Lleyton said with a nod, “and all we want in return is a guarantee that we’ll be able to continue to operate as our own separate entity when you inevitably win.”

  It seemed like a fair deal, an almost overly fair deal, but after giving myself a few moments to really size the two of them up, I smiled and extended my hand, “You have yourself a deal.”

  “Fan-fucking-tastic.” Lleyton laughed haughtily after taking and violently shaking my hand, “We better get over to the guys and tell them the good news. It’s truly been a pleasure meeting you three.”

  “Hopefully Sergei will meet with us at the next one.” Mercy half-joked as the two Dragonborn got up and walked over to their little group where they were met with claps across their backs and a few quiet cheers.

  Despite how happy everything was though, I felt kind of off still, like things had gone unsaid and that the ICU already knew everything they needed to know and that we, the Damned Legion, also knew everything we needed to know, with the exception of me.

  I realized that shouldn’t be all that surprising given the fact that I hadn’t touched the forums whatsoever, though at the same time I was worried that that had the potential to cause confusion and problems down the track.

  “I am an agent of chaos though…” I accidentally muttered, earning me understandably confused expressions from the girls, “So, what do we think?”

  “Personally,” Sam said, “I think we should grab that Gathlain chick and get the Hell out of here. These guys are great, but if they know what we’re moving…”

  “It won’t be long until the halos find out.” Jane agreed solemnly, “Let’s do it, let’s get back home and do whatever it is we’re doing, then go from there.”

  “We haven’t got any guns though,” I sighed before pulling out my little book, “and I sincerely doubt I’m going to be able to decipher much more in here before we’re under fire.”

  “Maybe we, the Gamer Grilz, could be of assistance in that matter,” Frank said, seemingly appearing out of nowhere in the seat across from us, “and no, Pash and me didn’t get to choose that name. Diplomacy can be an ass of a thing.”

  “You have guns here?” I asked, consciously and disappointedly avoiding the conversation about where they got their name.

  “We have a few, yeah,” Frank replied, “it’s nothing like the ICU’s armory, but I’m sure you’ll be able to make do with a couple of pistols and shotguns, right?”

  “They will,” Frostiey said as she joined us at the end of the booth, “the place we’ll be hitting will have five, six halos tops. No need to waste a bunch of time trying to get some decent firepower. Here you go.”

  “Whoa.” I let out coolly yet involuntarily after barely catching the tossed Dave who, in his excursion, had gotten some fancy engravings, “What did you do to him?”

  “She hurt me…” Dave jokingly whimpered, “she hurt me bad.”

  “Quit your bitchin’,” Frostiey laughed, “but yeah, I gave him a little enchantment. Basically you cut someone, you nab their soul and send them into this sort of berserker rage.”

  “Doesn’t that seem a little OP?” Jane asked.

  “Not really,” Frostiey replied with a shrug, “if he’s close enough to cut them, he’s close enough to kill ‘em. Besides, bringing a knife to a magic and gun fight is enough of a handicap to warrant a few bonuses.”

  “Speaking of guns.” Frank said, waving for us to follow as he struggled to get out of the booth and eventually settled for walking along the seat.

  “We’ll be taking the sewer route,” Frostiey explained after we’d finally connected the dots and started following after Frank, “it’ll just be me though, have to leave some of the girls here so they can let me know if this place is still safe to come back to.”

  “I am deeply offended by your assumption that we can’t keep our fine institution safe,” Frank chuckled, “truthfully, I’m glad to have the backup, should we need it.”

  “And what about us?” I asked, “Having gone up against these winged dorks in the past, I can tell you that we’ll need all the help we can get.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Frostiey replied reassuringly, “the less people, the less likely we’ll draw any unwanted attention. Besides, I’ve heard you’ve taken down a fair few halos solo.”

  “Yes, well…” I trailed off, stuck between thanking her and saying those we
re flukes as we came up to the bar, “Okay, so maybe we’ll be able to handle them, I still feel like we have a much better chance of getting out of the city with more people backing us up.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure that nuke of yours gets where it’s going.” Frostiey said confidently while Frank gestured for Jake to start pulling weapons out from under the bar.

  “We have six pistols and a shotgun,” Frank announced after clambering up onto a barstool, “take your pick.”

  There was still more to be said between Frostiey and me as far as I was concerned, though I was actually kind of grateful for the distraction of Jake’s little stockpile.

  Not only did it get my mind off of trying to convince Frostiey to drag more of her girls on what I was sure was going to be a suicide run, but it also made me feel just that little bit safer.

  “Dibs on the automatic!” Sam practically squeaked as she snatched up the 93R off the bar.

  “Shotgun for me.” Jane said, grabbing the pump.

  “I’m good.” Frostey explained when our eyes turned to her.

  “Then I’ll take the USP.” I chuckled after taking the smaller pistol.

  “Not the Deagle?” Frank asked curiously, earning him a severe look from Jake.

  “If it’s just going to be the five of us, I’m going to want a few more rounds at my disposal.” I replied with a smile.

  “Five?” Jane chimed in confusedly, “I was under the impression Frank was staying here.”

  “Me too…” Frank trailed off, making no effort to mask his concern.

  “I’m counting Dave.” I said before leaning in close and whispering “He likes to be involved.”

  “I heard that.” Dave grumbled, “Both of… thats, to which I say naw and fuck you respectively.”

  “Love you too, buddy.” I replied as I straightened back up, “So, do we have to go back up through the club?”