Echo Online 2

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  10

  “Would you look at that,” one of the cocky halos laughed from where he and his two cronies stood in the middle of the parade ground, “the illustrious leader of the Damned Legion has finally exposed himself!”

  “I would, but I’d rather avoid a whole Pee-wee Herman thing.” I called back as I unfurled my wings and flew down to the Angels, “So, y’all seem a little concerned.”

  “What? This?” the lead Angel scoffed, gesturing to the translucent gold bubble that surrounded them, “This is more so we could get a chance to talk before your moronic lemmings picked a fight they couldn’t win.”

  “Cocky as ever, huh?” I mocked, landing right outside the bubble, “What do you want?”

  The Angels were clearly not impressed with the lack of respect they were getting, which pretty much told me everything I needed to know about how those who were still in the city reacted to the winged dorks.

  “I do have stuff on the planner today, guys,” I said, “you know, mostly to do with giving you and your cohorts a good ole whippin’.”

  “Good to see our little lightshow hasn’t broken your spirit,” the lead Angel replied, “but yes, onto why we’re here.”

  “Big surge of energy,” the Angel to his left continued irritatedly, “wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”

  “Heh, I knew you chickenshits were scared,” I chuckled before sniffing the air which weirdly smelled of cinnamon, “you reek of it.”

  “Do you know anything or not?” the third Angel, who we’ll name ‘Tim’, bit back venomously.

  “Let’s say I don’t.” I replied with a smirk, “Now, would y’all kindly get off my island?”

  “Your island?” the first Angel, let’s call him ‘Lou’, laughed, “I think you greatly overestimate just how in control you are of this whole situation.”

  “Really?” I seethed through my still present smile, “Because, and this could just be me being presumptuous, but it seemed like this island was just about the only thing your boss couldn’t crack.”

  “Only because he wasn’t trying.” Tim lied with a scoff, earning him a sharp look from the second, who shall henceforth be known as ‘Rimjob’.

  “So, he’s just letting us stay alive to work on a solution to knock you halos back to the Stone Age?” I said, “Gee, and here I thought he just didn’t have the juice, but I guess he’s actually a dumbass. Says a lot about you for following him.”

  “You’re really eager to die today, aren’t you?” Rimjob warned.

  “Way I see it, you kill me, they kill you, I respawn.” I replied before nodding towards their bubble, “Besides, I don’t see you three wanting to leave the comfort of… whatever that thing is.”

  “Oh, this?” Lou asked after pretending not to have a eureka moment, “This is just a little something we cooked up. Not only can it protect us from pretty much any kind of incoming damage, but…”

  That ‘but’ trailed off for a good few seconds before Lou got impatient and snapped his fingers at Tim who, somehow, knew exactly what to do and expanded the bubble a good five feet.

  “Well,” I said, looking around the almost overwhelming cinnamon-scented light ball I was trapped in, “this certainly makes things a bit more interesting.”

  “Just a bit?” Lou mocked as bullets started sparking off the shield near where the Angels were, “I figured this would finally impress you.”

  “Meh,” I replied with a shrug, “now that I know he’s the one keeping this thing up, I can just kill him.”

  “Oh, you might not want to.” Lou said, smiling with an almost excessive amount of condescension as he did.

  “Yeah, and why…” I trailed off as Tim, with barely a twitch of his body, teleported us on top of some building the other halos hadn’t blown to pieces yet, “not?”

  “Not so cocky without your friends, huh?” Rimjob scoffed, “C’mon, let’s get his ass over to the cathedral, Carl’ll want him when he comes back.”

  “I don’t know if we can move him like this,” Tim replied, newly sweaty and clearly straining to keep the shield up after the teleportation, “the bubble’ll hold for now, but this guy-”

  “Heh,” I huffed amusedly as my hand found Dave’s handle, “I s’pose you guys thought this’d be a problem, huh?”

  “It’s rude to interrupt,” Lou said purposefully, “and what the Hell are you talking about?”

  “This,” I said, gesturing to the city around me with my free hand, “I wanted to get here, was actually struggling with coming up with an idea to get us over here without getting hit by what I assume are some pretty heavy-duty deterrents.”

  Mostly I was just waffling to try and get them to watch my mouth instead of my eyes and hand, but I have to admit it felt kind of good to watch their eyes widen as they realized what they’d done.

  “And I’m guessing your plan is to… What? Get purged with holy fire the second you leave this rooftop?” Lou laughed forcefully, “I’m pretty sure-”

  That’s when I threw Dave, catching Rimjob right in the chest as I made for Lou who, stunned by yet another interruption, was no match for my patented ‘tail through throat’ technique.

  Now, I’m not sure if it was because he panicked and let out the magical equivalent of a scared wee or if he’d thought I was telling the truth, but Tim managed to teleport us back to the island where a group of concerned and confused onlookers met us.

  “So,” I chuckled, looking at the quivering Tim as his bubble faltered around us, “still think y’all are top do-”

  And that’s when Tim fainted.

  Full-on, eyes rolling back into his head, dopey expression on his face, fainted.

  “Huh.” I let out confusedly as I straightened up and regarded the Angel with amusement, “Didn’t expect that. Sergei!”

  “Yeah?” Sergei laughed from right behind me.

  “Lock this guy up in a cell somewhere,” I said, accepting Dave as the Orc handed him to me, “ward it up good and tight, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s about to log out.”

  “Right away.” Sergei replied before snapping his fingers and calling over a few other Orcs to help with the lift.

  “Not bad,” I murmured to myself, my attention again drifting to the city as I started getting the starts of an idea, “not bad at all.”

  11

  Ensuring Tim was good and locked up before he had the chance to log off, I went ahead and decided to do the same, confident that the island was in good hands and was protected by even better forces.

  “That’s right,” I groaned as I got up and ejected the nipple thing right into my palm, “nice and easy.”

  I wasn’t sure why everything hurt so bad, nor if it was genuine pain or just a sort of stiffness throughout my entire body that was successfully mimicking pain.

  Judging from the ambient light that had filled my apartment, I’d been in the game for at least a few hours, which meant I’d messed up.

  Badly.

  Doing my best to revive my useless body, I made for the front door, my left leg lagging behind as I got out to the stairs and nearly fell down.

  Luckily, I didn’t die, and managed to make it all the way to the laundry which, to my dismay, was empty.

  I’d had my laundry stolen before, but it was just that, my laundry.

  Struggling to decide what to do for all of about five seconds, I let out a long sigh and started the long trek back to Jane and Sam’s.

  I thought of a bunch of ways to tell her I’d lost their stuff, but every way ended with me either ruining a perfectly good relationship less than a week in or, perhaps, create something that would linger overhead for years to come.

  There was a part of me that knew I was just being dramatic, though those types of facts usually have a hard time getting through the panicked self-abuse.

  Before long, I was knocking on the door, mildly annoyed with myself for not giving my brain enough time to work on a solution.

  “Hey…” I trailed off emba
rrassedly after Jane had opened the door, “about the laun-where’d you get that?”

  For a moment Jane just looked at me with her head tilted, but eventually she followed my finger and realized I was talking about the half-folded pile of laundry in the middle of the floor, “Oh, that,” she let out with a smile, “thingo… Kelly, she brought them up with her load, said she was going to let you know.”

  “Ah,” I said, making a mental note to go and thank Kelly later, “I was in the game, didn’t hear her knock.”

  “Fair enough,” Jane replied before stepping out of the way and waving me in, “sorry, still in tack-a-tack mode.”

  “I get the same sometimes.” I chuckled as I walked into her apartment and was immediately hit with a smell.

  It wasn’t a bad smell, it was actually a really nice one, but it made me realize just how bland my apartment was.

  “You have any breaks yet?” I asked, wandering over to the kitchen while Jane moved back towards her computer.

  “Kind of,” the almost obsessive programmer replied, “folded some clothes and made the bed after Kenny came. Kenny? Kimmy?”

  “Kelly.” I laughed.

  “That’s the one,” Jane sighed, clearly feeling somewhat embarrassed that she’d mixed it up, “again, tack-a-tack.”

  “Alright, I think it might be time for you to have a bit of a break.” I said, “Maybe we can go out and grab some groceries, maybe even have lunch out?”

  “Groceries yes, lunch no,” Jane replied, spinning in her chair to face me, “Sam would definitely kill me if we went out and had a fancy meal while she was stuck at work.”

  “Could do takeout?” I suggested, “Order in from that Chinese place?”

  “Hmm…” Jane trailed off, “See, I want to say yes, because yum, but at the same time I’ve already had Chinese this week.”

  “Eh, doctors are always saying people should eat more food.” I said with a shrug.

  “Yeah, like vegetables and stuff, not shrimp fried rice.” Jane laughed, “Although, it is pretty good brain food…”

  “And there you have it,” I huffed amusedly, “you order us some brain food, I’ll go get some groceries for tonight, and then we’ll watch an episode of something.”

  “Got anything in mind?” Jane asked as I went for the door.

  “Surprise me.” I replied, genuinely excited to see what she’d come up with.

  “Ooh, you’re going to regret giving me this power.” Jane half-joked before catching me at the door and giving me a quick kiss on the cheek, “Hurry back.”

  “Five minutes,” I said, plotting the journey out in my head, “maybe ten. See you soon.”

  “You too.”

  Not going to lie, it felt kind of weird going into her apartment only to run out again five seconds later, but I also kind of liked moving around a bunch, not least because it helped get rid of the stiffness I was still partially plagued with.

  Come to think of it, I probably should’ve just stretched at that point.

  Ah well, c’est la vie.

  12

  After a quick stop at home to grab my headphones and mobile, I ended up going for a jog to some music, a process that surprised me given the fact that I didn’t jog, I didn’t even like jogging, or those who jogged.

  Jog.

  I don’t know, my point is that for some reason I was feeling more vital, like I was back in high school on my way to the arcade, with the obvious exception that I didn’t get to play Dance Dance Revolution until my heart and thighs threatened to cut me at the end of my journey.

  No, instead I got to go through a few aisles wondering what I was going to cook after my ten minute barely-above-a-brisk-walk trip.

  Okay, so maybe I wasn’t fully sold on jogging, sue me.

  Anyway, as I made my way down past a spice section, I started thinking about going all out and putting together some Indian with a homemade raita side, or even some kind of roast with potatoes and pumpkin.

  However, after much deliberation, I decided to go with something simpler, figuring that pulling out the big guns too early would leave me without anywhere to go.

  “Steak and fries,” I said assuredly, walking towards the frozen food section, “that’ll do nicely.”

  It was as I was pulling out a bag of frozen curly fries that I noticed a familiar face smiling at me.

  “Don’t recognize me?” she asked, looking up at the lights while I pulled out and pocketed my headphones, “I suppose this place is slightly better lit than where I work.”

  I was still confused.

  Her face scratched at the little memory wall in my head, though her short crewcut blonde hair was anything but.

  “American woman?” the woman chuckled before pointing to her head, “I was probably wearing a wig?”

  “Oh.” I replied as my brain finally caught up, “Oh! Shit, hi, sorry. How are you?”

  “I’m good,” the stripper laughed, “surprised you remember me, to be honest, mostly just wanted to see how long it’d take before I gave in and told you. How about you? You ran away pretty quick the other night. Rachael, by the way.”

  “Buck,” I replied, “and yeah, had to get home and get stuck into Echo. Besides, you seemed to have your hands full.”

  “Hmm? Oh! With Carl?” she asked, “Yeah, no, he was great fun, talked about his fiancé a lot.”

  “Really?” I huffed amusedly, “Sorry, I just didn’t expect that. Figured he’d be more focused on… Well, you.”

  “You’d be surprised what some guys talk about once that curtain closes.” Rachael replied, “I wonder what or who you’d talk about…”

  “Probably Jane and Sam,” I said, leading the way over to the meat section, “not that night, though. Actually, yeah, that night if I’d come back in.”

  “Met them in the game?” Rachael asked, clearly a little crestfallen for some reason that I wasn’t willing to dissect.

  “Real life, actually,” I chuckled, “turns out that we’re neighbors.”

  I was starting to feel weird that I just kept telling everyone I ran into, but at the same time that particular instance was more of an ‘I’m not available’ than showing off or anything else.

  “That’s nice, I guess,” Rachael said as we got to the meats and I went about the arduous process of picking the right cut, “suppose we won’t be seeing you around much from here on out then?”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” I replied somewhat distractedly before making my decision and grabbing three T-bones, “probably more likely to catch us in Echo though. You play?”

  “I’m literally coming from a session now,” Rachael said, happy for the change of conversation, “it’s getting weird though. That dude on the island set off something big, rumbled the whole city.”

  “Oh yeah?” I asked, deliberating whether or not I should tell her I was the dude.

  “Mmhm,” Rachael continued, “sent three of our guys over there and, like, ten minutes later two of them respawned and the other is missing. He’s really into the roleplaying element too, so he won’t tell us where he is on the forums or anything.”

  “Maybe he’s just taking a break?” I suggested after my brain put two and two together and I realized she meant their forums.

  “Nah, he made a post specifically telling us he wasn’t going to tell us where he was,” Rachel scoffed, “either he was worried we’d forget about him otherwise, or that dude has him under his thumb.”

  “I guess I’ve just got to come out and say it,” I sighed, deciding if she did divulge anything pertinent I wouldn’t really feel comfortable using it, “I’m the dude.”

  “Like The Big Lebowski?” Rachael joked.

  “Hardy-har,” I replied with a smirk as we reached the line for the registers, “but seriously, I’m the island dude.”

  “Should’ve known,” Rachael said, clicking her tongue while we waited, “all that charisma and quiet charm, no choice but to be an evil dictator.”

  “Talking about Carl, now, ar
e we?” I scoffed, “Is that the narrative y’all are spinning though? That I’m somehow the bad guy?”

  “I mean… yeah?” Rachael huffed matter-of-factly, “Only reason we cleansed the city with holy fire was because of the potential evil uprising.”

  “Evil uprising?” I laughed as my phone chimed loud enough to make a few people check their pockets, “I was just trying to get a little team together after Captain Dildo and his merry band of slightly smaller dildos gave me the boot.”

  “So I’m a dildo now?” Rachael asked while I quickly checked my phone, “And here I thought we had a good thing going.”

  “Yeah, well, you accused me of attempting an evil uprising,” I replied after dismissing the email notification and shifting closer to the register, “in all seriousness, though, do you really buy into that whole ‘greater good’ thing with the Angels? I mean, you don’t really seem to be the nerdy type.”

  “Coming from the charismatic charmer with two girlfriends.” Rachael scoffed, “Honestly, I love D&D, WoW, pretty much anything I can do at any time of the day. You don’t become a stripper after a great teenaged social life.”

  “I thought it had to do with the stupid amounts of money.” I replied, raising my eyebrow and giving her a little smirk.

  “Okay, so maybe getting into a college job that made more in a month than I’d make in a year if I stuck with my degree got me to stick with it,” Rachael admitted, “but still, I was one of those girls that didn’t get anything in the way of tits or ass until well after high school.”

  Dead honest, I was finding it kind of funny how liberally we were talking about stripping and her moneymakers, especially given the looks we were getting from some of the other shoppers.

  It was good to have a new friend that policed her language even less than I did.

  “What about you?” Rachael asked after a few seconds of smiling in silence, “Is Echo your only vice?”

  “Lately, yeah,” I said with a nod, “used to get into Warframe and that, even tried being a bit more social with 40k, but Echo really ticks every box for me.”