Let's pick up where we left off... sorta.
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Therapy Dog: Glad to see ya again Echo! Looks like you're doing well, especially considering what day it is. How are you holding up though? Are you ready to continue our last session?
Echo: I'm... holding. Investigation's been kinda dry, and ironically all this rain hasn't been helping. As for the session, and I don't mean any offense by this, but I'm about as ready as a brick supporting the same old house. What's it been like, 5 or 7 years of repeating the same story? At this point it's just kinda getting annoying, and the sessions just drag oooon and ooooon and--
Therapy Dog: Right, my apologies, and no offense taken! I completely understand, this method of therapy is a bit out of my range of expertise, but Officer Hotel insists we go through it again before this new case, just to make sure your head's in the right place and all that!
Echo: What? Did the boys get me mixed up with Charlie again? We don't even look that similar anymore, even less so to humans!
Besides, I'm not the one that needs the help...
Therapy Dog: Mmmmmno. It was definitely you specifically. Charlie's being given a special briefing, still not sure what that entails but I'm sure he's getting the support he needs! But, for now, let's focus on the support that you may or may not still need as deemed by Officer Hotel and not by any means me. I'm going to be showing you some illustrations you made back when you first met with a therapist, please flip through them as you recall the events that took place on the day of your brothers... "long-term missing case record."
Echo: (Dog almighty did he really have make me remember how bad I was back then???)
Echo: As I pulled Charlie out of the water, he seemed to have gained a lot more confidence and determination than when we first found him. I don't know what Bravo did, but whatever it was it was enough to snap Charlie out of his hopeless mindset. It was almost as if he was trying to act tough, maybe he was
mimicking the strength he saw in Bravo? He always did look up to him as a symbol of power and safety. Up until then, he seemed invincible in Charlie's eyes...
Echo: I didn't get many chances to look over at Bravo once we found Charlie, but the few times I did it... looked like he was smiling. For years I could never get the image out of my head, I just couldn't understand it. He clearly knew the danger he was in, so why on Earth would he SMILE? I think now I've come to understand the answer to that question, and it's given me hope in my investigation, he was smiling
because he knew. At that point, the danger he was in wasn't his biggest concern, it was all on Charlie. He knew he could still do something to help, something to give Charlie hope, to get him out of that situation. Besides, he was far to stubborn to go out without a fight. He was gonna make a statement, to both that monster and Charlie...
Echo: All I could hear was the suffocating of my bother
(well, and the rain too I guess... and the river... and some ducks-- you get my point), but just as Charlie was getting out of the water, I turned to the inhuman wailing of that fluffy monstrosity, and Bravo latching his claws where a beady white dot was supposed to be. It looked as if it were going to go in for a bite at his neck, and Bravo must have waited for that exact moment.
Echo: However... in response, the monster's fist clenched harder. The abrupt shout from Bravo was enough to tell me that it was time to go. Even as a pup, I understood what Bravo had just done, and I understood what little time we had to capitalize on it. Our goal was to keep Charlie safe,
we had a plan... but man do I wish I hadn't stuck to it. I know he was tossed into a raging river, I KNOW what they found on the rocks, but... I should have checked where he went. There's still a chance he could have sur--
Therapy Dog: Echo... perhaps we should stay on track, we'll get back to that soon.
Echo: Right...
Echo: I knew what I had to do, but Charlie wouldn't move. He watched, he couldn't keep his eyes away. After the initial shock, he just... stared. Anytime I ask him what he saw, he'd never answer me straight. He gets all, ya know,
weird about some crazy religious sounding carp. I guess he's at least saying something now, no therapist could help get him over his quietness until he started meeting with Mr. Sandwitch's girlfriend. I don't mind that he found a hobby, I just wish he wasn't so insistent on it. Even if he did have important info on where Bravo may have gone, to him, the case was already closed...
Echo: Didn't take too long for the monster to take notice. It reached right out for Charlie, at this point I was just about ready for a worse case scenario but then... he punched it! Like, straight up just punched the thing in the nose. He's not the strongest guy but that punch in particular had so much anger to it! I was expecting him to just break down then and there, admittedly Charlie was always a cry baby, but not this time.
He had a look I'd normally only seen from Bravo, he was absolutely furious. It wasn't enough to keep it at bay for long, but it seemed to have made the monster double take a bit.
Echo: Just then, after all that time, our parents had finally arrived. I was convinced they wouldn't come, that they were stuck in their own stupid problems, but they came.
They must have heard me when I ran down the stairs that night.
My dad didn't take his had off that trigger till the monster was clear and gone. He must have fired six rounds just trying to land a hit on that thing, I think they hit it at least once.
It ran off into the night, I never saw it again....
Echo: The next day, we began searching the area for any signs of Bravo. After searching up and down the river with the help of Officer Hotel,
we found his collar snagged on a branch by the bridge leading in and out of River Ridge. There were no other signs of him. Not a track, not a trail, nothing. At the same time, they never found a body either, even after days and months of looking over the entire stretch of the River's course. Mom and Dad took it really hard, frankly I think they should have. In their eyes, they were responsible for losing them, and on top of the money situation they were already failing us. Out of grief, fear that the monster may come back, and knowing they wouldn't be able to afford taking care of us for much longer, we were given to Officer Hotel. They did get some money from giving us to the police force, and that seems to have helped them get a bit more stable, but that was years ago. It's been years since I last checked up on them, last I heard they'd separated. I don't think I want to see them again anyway...
Echo: As time went by, we got accustom to our jobs as members of the K-9 unit in Babylon.
I started to use my drawing skills to help visualize suspect descriptions from witnesses, but once a week they'd let me work on my own investigation. I never did stop searching for Bravo, even when everyone else gave up and we'd been transfered to River Ridge. Even Charlie...
Therapy Dog: Oh wow! You drew this when you were 2? This looks great! How'd you know what you'd both end up looking like?
Echo: Oh, no I just drew this while we were talking about the first part. We were sitting there a long time and I just kinda got bored. Amazed you didn't notice that actually.
Therapy Dog: Neat...! Wait, when did you get the time to color this, we only have pens in--
Echo: We got assigned to some pretty big assignments, really weird ones too. I took to more of the usual work, but Charlie kept getting assigned really
weird cases regarding the local pets. There was this one time he got invited to a wedding between that old cat that hangs out with Mr. Sandwiches girlfriend a lot and apparently some king of Africa or something? Mr. Byron showed up, broke out into a giant fight, Charlie really didn't know what to do there, it was way out of his element. He was really afraid of the pool though, and I don't think what ended up happening helped that in any regards.
Therapy Dog: I heard about that actually! It was super romantic, I wish I could have been there to see it live! Glad it's been working out okay though, Sabrina and Fido are such a cute couple!
Echo: Yyyyyeah, still think Mr. Byron is kinda weird but I've got bigger things to worry about than Dogs and Cats living together, or the mass hysteria it brings. Anyway, that's around the time Charlie had actually started to get in contact with the fortune lady, and around the same time he started acting really weird.
Therapy Dog: You mean Tarot right? Not surprising really, she's had me do some weird stuff lemme tell ya!
Echo: M-maybe another time, I do gotta go do something after this, remember?
Therapy Dog: Right-- right, sorry! Please continue!
Echo: He started talking about spirits, afterlives, the past and present, other dimensions, all kinds of fantasy mumbo jumbo. He was a pretty creative pup, I think hanging out with Ms. Tarot brought back the childlike wonder in him, but I don't think it was very healthy for his mental state. He was already pretty vulnerable, and now I think he really believes everything he's been saying.
Therapy Dog: I believe him!
Echo: Not helping M--
Therapy Dog: I saw a portal to hell once...
Echo: NOT. HELPING.
MUNGO.
Mungo: Sorry sorry sorry! I forgot ya don't like talking about that stuff,
just seems like common knowledge to me...
Echo: *Sigh* Anyway, his new found "abilities" apparently led him to solving a pretty big case involving a murder suspect. All he was told to do was watch over the crime scene, but after a while of just wandering around he just... knew exactly what happened, even the suspects identity and where he'd fled to. No one at the scene believed him, but he insisted the SWAT team be sent to the location he "was told about". Lowe and behold, 10 minutes later it turns out they'd found the suspects home. I just think he found some clues that the detectives would have found on their own, but some of the officers started to listen to him more. More murder cases were investigated, more murder cases were solved. It wasn't long till the FBI took notice of him. Around this time, he'd stopped meeting with Ms. Tarot, and he never made any mention of her to them. He was taken in as the first member of some kind of special K-9 force:
FK-1. As far as I know, he's the only member of this unit. It's been hard keeping in contact with him, they don't seem keen on letting people talk to him. He's still owned by Officer Hotel of course, but he rarely visits, and if he does it's briefly in the middle of the night.
Echo: This next case will be the first time talking to him in 6 months, and likely the most amount of time I'll get to spend with him for a while. I don't know what the case is exactly, but for some reason they require both of us specifically to lend a hand. I expressed concern over this case interfering with my own, but Hotel said he think it'll lead me to knowing more about what happened to Bravo. There's no way I could pass something like that up, I KNOW he's still alive, I just have to keep looking...
Mungo: And... what is it you hope to find after all these years?
Echo: At this point? Just some closure at least....... by the way, I've been petting you for like 2 hours now and I can't help but notice how soft your fur is today, you using some kinda new shampoo?
Mungo: Yeah!! We got a gift basket full of little soap squares at the office in Babylon a couple days ago, this stuff's great, even in all this rain!
Echo: Aw man, lucky! Wonder why they chose a weird buttery scent for it though...
Mungo: Alright, time to end this session. Glad you could stop by Echo, maybe I'll come back and visit you in River Ridge again sometime, it'd be nice to see the old SWAT team again too! Where ya heading first, by the way? I know ya haven't been briefed yet, but surely they must have had a lead if they're calling you in now right?
Echo: Right now we're heading back to the RRPD. Something went down at a local pet shop, and it sounds like we're getting geared up to speak with some witnesses on the scene. Apparently we have one "unusual suspect" in the area as well, wonder who that could be...
...
..........
Chaining is Locked
1)...
2) Begin to fake-snore loudly
3) Begin to get up, reluctantly
4) Smack the annoying alarm clock