Echo Online 2

  By

  Zachariah Dracoulis

  Echo Online 2 Copyright © 2019 by Zachariah Dracoulis. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover designed by Flame Croowz

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For Darcie,

  Keep yeetin’ on those yoters.

  1

  B eing a good person sucks ass sometimes.

  Scratch that, being a good person sucks a lot of the times.

  I’d expected people to show up, yes, but the amount of griefers and just run-of-the-mill jackasses was unprecedented.

  “That’s…” I murmured as I looked over the dozens upon dozens of people that filled my little island’s parade ground from where I stood next to the lighthouse, “that’s a lot of people.”

  “And there are more inside.” Sam replied with a smile from my left, her adorable black ears twitching giddily, “You wouldn’t believe half of the people rage quit, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t believe that half of these people are just representatives of larger groups…” Jane muttered half-amusedly as she shuffled closer to my right arm, “This… this could all go very badly, very quickly, right?”

  “Probably, yeah.” I replied, nodding and not bothering to hide the fact that my hand hadn’t left Dave’s handle since the first group disembarked, “Might be a bad idea to sow the seeds of dissent too early, though.”

  “Relax,” Sam whispered with a smirk, jabbing me lightly in the ribs with her elbow, “Sergei and the boys’ll handle anyone that gets out of line.”

  “There are limits to what the Orcs can do, honey,” Jane chuckled, “don’t tell them I said that, but there’s a powder keg standing in front of us just waiting to go-”

  “Buck!” Sergei boomed happily as he came down the stairs behind us, “Here I thought you’d have logged off already.”

  “Not without making sure my favorite Orc was good and settled in,” I said, shuffling over and giving the hulking mass some room, “everyone inside happy?”

  “Happy? No.” Sergei replied, shaking his head, “But all their rage is directed at those winged sons of whores. No offense.”

  “None taken.” I said before realizing he wasn’t only addressing me, but also about a third of the people in front of us, “Any ideas?”

  “For now?” Sergei asked with a shrug, “I think our best bet is to get good and locked down, no point in throwing punches before we’re ready. You think there’ll be enough room?”

  “I sure hope so,” I replied, finally releasing Dave to rub my neck while I struggled to work up a smile, “heard talk that we’ve got more people coming our way, some who got taken out and logged off before, others who’ve just heard about what went down and want a piece of the action.”

  “You think the Hallowed Kings will get any support?” Jane asked, clearly as surprised by this revelation as Sergei was.

  “No clue,” I sighed, “didn’t get a chance to hear much before the foot traffic really started to build up. Speaking of, do you think there’s any risk to us logging off?”

  “As in people trying to take this place?” Sergei scoffed, “No, my friend, I think you’ll find that almost all of the people here acknowledge they’d have had nowhere to go if it weren’t for you.”

  “What about the griefers?” I asked, “They’ve settled down some now, but they’re still around.”

  Sergei chuckled and managed to somehow look directly at one of the troublemakers in a sea of good eggs, “I’ll make sure to send a message that there is to be no funny business. But first, you have to give a speech.”

  “What? Fuck that.” I replied almost too quickly, earning me shocked expressions from everyone, “I mean… Shit, I don’t know, I’m not built for that sort of crap.”

  “You have lungs and a mouth, yes?” Sergei laughed, “Because those are just about the only requirements.”

  “I know, it’s just…” I trailed off, struggling to come up with a legitimate reason, “I just don’t see why that’s my job.”

  “Because it’s your army,” Sergei replied with a clap across my back, “or it will be once you use that silver tongue of yours.”

  “I-” I started then stopped, failing to get anything out beyond a few grunts and exasperated huffs, before letting out a long, exhausted breath, “Fine, but they better be listening. I’m not going to repeat myself.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” Sergei murmured coyly before turning his attention to the crowd and clapping his mighty hands, “Alright, everybody, listen up! Big man’s got a few words to say!”

  Not going to lie, I was kind of hoping that I’d just be able to speak and those who heard me, heard me, and the others just missed out.

  But no, Sergei just had to make it so every Goblin, Orc, Tiefling, Elf, and whatever-the-Hell-else was looking right at me.

  It wasn’t the public speaking element of it all, it was actually more the opposite.

  Was I going to open my mouth and spout out something inspiring about how the Hallowed Kings had taken their homes but wouldn’t be able to take their freedom?

  Was I going to use it as an opportunity to do the quasi-real life equivalent of shitposting?

  Being good is hard, yes, but sometimes being chaotic is far, far worse.

  “Go on,” Jane whispered encouragingly, “you’ve got this.”

  With that, a smile spread across my lips and suddenly I knew exactly what to say.

  “We all know why you’re here today, and it ain’t ‘cause you want to hear some puffed-up Tiefling tell you about how great he is for giving you a place to stay.” I proclaimed, sending a few chuckles and murmurs of agreement throughout the crowd, “You’re here today because a couple of halo-wearing dickheads decided there wasn’t enough room for you in your city.”

  More nods waved through the sea of heads, with a few going as far as to shout “Fuck the Hallowed Kings!”

  “They’ve won today, there’s no doubt about that,” I continued, bringing the mood of the crowd down somewhat, “but from here we can make a stand, we can send a message that the Angels aren’t all-powerful, and we can show those wings what happens when you fuck with the Damned Legion!”

  And just like that, a tsunami of sound barraged me as the people both in front and those who’d apparently ninja’d their way up behind us whooped, hollered, and pumped their fists into the air.

  None, however, were as loud as Sergei who, with the power of all the bears in Russia, roared and pounded on his chest with just about the biggest damn smile I’d ever seen plastered across his face.

  Then someone assassinated me.

  Well, attempted to assassinate me.

  2

  I don’t know if she was trying to gain favor with the Hallowed Kings or if she was just another griefer, but what I do know is that the kris dagger she stabbed me in the back with hurt like a motherfucker.

  For a moment all I could do was stand there, looking down at the zig-zag-ish blade’s tip sticking through the flesh a few inches below my right arm.

  The others, apparently oblivious to the fact that I’d just been shanked, went on celebrating while I struggled to figure out what the Hell I was supposed to do.

  “Ow…” I murmured, my eyes fixed on the blade.

  Then, rig
ht as my attacker went to move the dagger, my brain made an instinctual call that I honestly hadn’t even considered, spreading my wings in a split-second like a supercharged airbag and sending the assailant flying back a good few feet.

  Deciding not to rely solely on my body’s involuntary twitches, I slowly drew Dave and turned to face my attacker, who was completely stunned after smashing her head on the dirt.

  She was a young, punky, and completely terrified Elf wearing a leather, badge-covered vest that both screamed ‘I’m unique!’ and ‘Please let me be like the other cool kids!’

  Truthfully, I’d probably have felt sorry for her if she hadn’t just gone and stabbed me.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” she slurred dazedly as she tried to get to her feet, drawing the attention of the others.

  “Yeah, not a great position you’ve put yourself in,” I chuckled coldly, crossing the short distance between us and pretending the kris didn’t hurt, “and now I got to kill you.”

  “Stab her, Buck!” Dave demanded with a disturbing level of intensity, giving the already panicked Elf the strength to get up and try and run, only to be blocked by the crowd, “Slit her Elfy fuckin’ throat!”

  “Dude, calm down.” I said, regarding Dave with genuine discomfort as the failed assassin gave up on going back the way she came and started running left, only to be tripped by a Gnome’s leg, “You’re making this weird.”

  “I’m making this weird?” Dave scoffed as the Elf once again scrambled to her feet and started running, “You’re the one wh-woah!”

  Now that I think about it, it was kind of rude to pitch Dave mid-sentence, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have given a crap as soon as he was embedded in the Elf’s lower spine.

  The Elf, instead of taking the opportunity to put herself in my shoes, struggled to do much more than grab uselessly for Dave’s handle as she stumbled about.

  “Could’ve stabbed me in the chest, you know?” I called out as I walked over, “Would’ve been a whole lot more ‘Otoya Yamaguchi’ and less ‘insert parallel between backstabbing and the Hallowed Kings’.”

  Unsurprisingly, and rather rudely, the Elf wasn’t listening.

  No, she instead decided to keel over right as I was about to reach her, forcing me to bend over and pull Dave out, shifting around the already fairly uncomfortable kris.

  “You could’ve been cool, just hung out and had fun,” I said with a pained sigh, rolling the Elf over with my foot and wishing I was talking to Carl, “but now you’re just a paralyzed mook who got killed by some dude’s tail.”

  Confusion and fear followed as I whipped my tail around and stabbed the Elf’s heart with a viper-like strike, killing her surprisingly quickly and dulling what little adrenaline the relatively minor confrontation had stirred up within me.

  Unfortunately, that came with the side effect of losing the significant pain relief brain go-go juice brought.

  Seriously, I can’t stress enough how much it sucks to get impaled with a wavy blade and then move around with said wavy blade still inside you.

  “So,” I said, sheathing Dave and holding my side, “we got any healers out here?”

  With that, brevity returned followed by enough healers volunteering themselves to make all the hospitals that ever hospitaled irrelevant.

  “Log off after this?” Jane suggested as she and Sam waded through the crowd of healers to get to me.

  “Yes, please.” I chuckled weakly after lying on my side on the instruction from my ‘doctors’, “It’s been a long afternoon.”

  I think Sam said something after that, but I wasn’t able to hear her over the sound of my flesh tearing as someone pulled out the kris and a dozen glowing hands clapped over my wound, eliciting a very long and high-pitched wheeze from my lips.

  That… that wasn’t a proud moment for me.

  3

  Thanks to my new semi-permanent bodyguards, being Sergei and his boys, I was able to find a place to pass out with the girls in the top of the lighthouse.

  Hours had dragged by in Echo, painful hours of doing boring crap that was nowhere near as fun as the gunfights or sex I’d gotten used to having, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it was productive.

  There was a small army assembling on my little rock, and I got to wake up with Sam and Jane in my arms.

  “So, you two getting up any time soon?” I asked after seeing both the girls’ eyes flutter then lock shut.

  “I think I’m good.” Sam replied, nuzzling closer to me and hugging me tightly as we took off our forehead nipple things and handed them over to Jane.

  “Me too,” Jane sighed happily before opening one of her eyes and looking around as she set the devices on her bedside drawer, “besides, it’s still dark out.”

  “Is, isn’t it?” I said, genuinely surprised by the dark blue hue that was hanging over the room, “Still though, I don’t know if I’ve got another few hours’ sleep in me.”

  “Weirdo.” Sam joked as she wrapped her warm thigh around mine in an attempt to trap me.

  “I’m inclined to agree with Sam.” Jane added, coiling around my other leg and tightening her grip on me.

  “See, this isn’t fair.” I chuckled, ignoring the fact that Sam had started shuffling against my thigh, “I just want to get a good start on the day.”

  “Which makes you weird.” Sam reiterated, “Bed is warm, bed is fun, bed is life.”

  “Alright, alright, we don’t have to get up,” I sighed as I shifted my shoulders and pulled the girls as close as I could, “but you owe me.”

  “Us owe you?” Jane lightheartedly scoffed, “If I do recall correctly, we were supposed to have a date.”

  I rolled my eyes at that and smiled, “Not my fault the Angels rained Hellfire on everyone.”

  “Well, that’s not entirely accurate, is it?” Jane snorted adorably, “You know, because they’re Angels?”

  “I thought you two wanted to get more sleep?” I laughed.

  “Don’t remember saying that,” Sam said, her shuffling having turned into a slow grind, “what about you?”

  “Nope,” Jane replied with a smirk as she noticed what Sam was doing and decided she wanted to join in on the fun, “we just wanted to stay in bed.”

  “You guys can’t be serious.” I said, looking between the girls as they looked up at me and bit their lower lips, “I was just stabbed!”

  “Virtually,” Sam replied coyly, “and, if I’m being honest, that only makes… this more demanding.”

  “Exactly,” Jane agreed, “what if something bad happened to you? What if you get stabbed again?”

  “It was only virtual.” I scoffed with a jokingly pointed look at Sam, only then realizing I was apparently actively trying to talk my way out of sex, “But I suppose you do have a point.”

  “Really?” Jane mocked, “And here I thought we didn’t know what we were talking about.”

  “I got that impression, too,” Sam said with a nod, “guess we should just go back to sleep.”

  “Ha, not happening.” I replied before pulling Sam up a bit and kissing her, feeling her lips curl into a smile as I did.

  In that moment, I couldn’t help but think about how I’d had a pretty damn good start to the day.

  I was the leader of some kind of rebellion thing, had sated Dave’s thirst, and was about to have some pre-sunrise fun.

  There was one thing that could ruin the bubbling sense of happiness and general chill that I felt, and you know that that thing had to happen.

  “Shit…” I muttered, breaking away from the confused Sam and flopping my head back onto the pillow.

  “What’s wrong?” Jane asked as she stopped the sensual creep her hand had been making down my body.

  “Carl,” I replied with a defeated sigh, “I just remembered the… thing with Carl.”

  “The thing where you laid him out?” Sam chuckled, “I’m pretty sure if he was going to call the cops, you’d have heard by now.”

  �
�I know, I know,” I said, feeling somewhat relieved and amused that incarceration wasn’t my primary concern, “I just… I have to work with him, and I don’t know how happy Pete’s going to be when he finds out.”

  Words can’t accurately describe how annoyed I was that I’d killed the mood.

  Okay, that’s not fair, ‘mildly to medium’ is good enough, but the point is that not only was I stuck in a paranoia and panic-filled downward spiral, I’d also managed to ruin some good old fashioned non-virtual hanky-panky.

  “Listen to me moaning.” I sighed, giving the girls a loving squeeze, “Sorry for ruining the mood.”

  “A, it’s not your fault,” Sam replied, “the amount of times her moodiness has tanked my chances of getting any are… innumerable doesn’t seem to do it justice.”

  “And B,” Jane said, clearly slightly hurt by Sam’s remark, “who says you’ve ruined anything?”

  “Say what now?” I chuckled.

  “You heard me,” Jane replied matter-of-factly, her hand drifting down once more, “the way I see it, you could use a little something to take your mind off things.”

  “But-”

  “And there’s no chance of anything happening before the sun comes up, anyway.” Sam interjected before tenderly tracing my chest with her fingers while Jane’s slipped under my pajamas’ waistband and followed the sensitive line made by the elastic.

  So, there I was, stuck with a genuine conundrum.

  On one hand, I wanted to say something to get the ball properly rolling.

  On the other, I was about ninety percent sure my mouth would do another one of those ‘ruin the moment’ things.

  “So, what do you think?” Jane asked cheekily, her fingers slipping deeper into my pants on each pass, “Could you do with a little… distraction?”

  She had to know I was struggling, right?

  She had to be doing some kind of sexy thing, right?

  Signs pointed to no, and my head had started to hurt.