Tara was more than exhausted. No dolphin ever exhausted itself while swimming, for they owned the ocean. But on time travel, she didn't see any reason why any creature could endure such mental torture.
Upon Trellia's part, the process was using her energy and song, fueled by the power of the remaining Glyphs. Radero kept close to her, though he too could feel the tense atmosphere revolving around the Singers. Each had a differing thought of dread, hopelessness, quivering and screaming nerves of stress such that a carefree spirit of the sea had never felt before.
Trellia was stricken with her own guilt. This entire story begun when she sensed a great presence from the sky of her own home, in the form of a crimson wave of darkness and fog that swept her ocean. It has my world now, she berated herself, The evil one has my peaceful world...the sentient ocean...the water tubes which we follow all over the earth...
Tiderider...my love...I refused to believe you had given up, being the last true descendant of the Glyph Caller himself...the Glyph guardian of Atlantis...And now it has you too.
Trellia's thoughts were jumbled. She thought of how she dragged her great-eons-grandfather, Ecco, into a mess she could have tried to solve herself. No, she thought, he wanted to help me. He wouldn't have stopped until the problem was solved. Such was his attitude with Vortex, such as he shall always be...
She remembered the Sky Killers, the future nearly forgotten descendants of the mighty Orcas. She remembered their leader, Teo, perhaps the last Orca to keep the cetaceans' powers of song. Now he was dragged in a fight he was sure to have lost, along with his comrades.
Now she was remembering the early dolphin ancestors, the Land Singers, and Kii. Their future was spiraling down the darkest hole, which by tales told only Ecco and his blood could fill. He was the "stone that split the river," the one fated to seal alternate futures and secure the one true future: her own.
Trellia's own strong mind was starting to falter and break down, just like the Glyphs. Because of her emotions, she could no longer concentrate fully on her Song of Transport, causing the strands of time to warp around them as they traveled slowly back at a stressful, leisurely pace.
Radero was most confused. Long he has thought he was just like the other calves of the pod, free of worry and much discipline. Now Ecco comes to him with a grand adventure that ended up filling his mind with worry. Worry for his hero, Ecco. Worry for his traveling companions: Tara, Trellia, and the Orca that they left behind, Kitnee. Worry for the father whom he only met for a solemn moment before he was called to a harsh duty. Worry for his mother...for the pod...
...For the world.
But of all the worry, Tara seemed most quarrelsome with her innermost powers. Her worried gaze was averted from the others, staring blankly at the sickening, twisted strands of time that passed her in the blink of a cosmic eye. Funny, she thought, nothing could be more twisted than my heart.
Ever since she was a calf, she, Ecco, and Kitnee were all good friends. They went on their own small adventures. Ecco the leader, Kitnee the worrier, she the warrior. The day they worked together to find the Big Blue and learn his vast wisdom she would never forget. That was the day, the pod sang, that they became true adults. Ever since, she always thought of what was best for her best friends. The day the pod was captured by the Vortex, she watched from within the bowels of the feeding Vortex Queen as Ecco charged into an almost impossible battle, achieving victory and saving his kind.
She helped him as he did so again, passing through the dangers of Lunar Bay to face the Queen. We have grown too much now, she realized without doubt, all of us have finally grown too far apart. So much for intertwining destinies.
And now, along with a small calf and a shadow that dwelled within a descendant from the far future, she was leaving Kitnee in the past, under the guard of an almost beaten Asterite, to an unknown fate. Would Ecco have left Kitnee behind? What friend am I?
And if that wasn't the worse thing to come, Trellia had to transport herself from another dimension of time with impossible news for Tara to bear. She heard the entire story of their visit to the ancient city of Atlantis, where they encountered the very moment that sealed the fate of its kind. In a vicious war with the Vortex, a beam struck from one of their ships. Intercepting the beam was the Glyph Caller and his array of powers gathered with Atlantis's crystals.
Intercepting the Caller was Ecco. Trellia watched helplessly as he was thrown into the sky, as dimensions literally ripped apart at the seams. The Caller was immortal, so his body lived. His persona was carried now within the Elder's Stone, retrieved by Trellia, ready to be given back to him in her time.
But Ecco was lost. Trellia had told them that Ecco was lost, and possibly dead.
Possibly dead...those words struck her heart. No, Ecco could not be dead...he just couldn't, it wasn't possible. Nothing could kill Ecco, she had argued in her mind.
She was angry. Partly at Trellia for seeming to have given up, leaving Ecco for dead with her words. Angry with herself for failing her abilities as a friend. Angry with Ecco for being so brave and admirable. He was a paladin, a martyr.
She gave herself a mental fluke slap. Foolish! Nobody writes Ecco off yet! Not while I'm around.
That's when she grinned inwardly. She finally admitted to herself what she had kept hidden for so long. She admired Ecco for being the warrior she only pretended to be. Her old naïve friend...
This is for you Ecco, she chided herself, as long as I'm still alive, then so are you. I shall do this for you, Ecco the old fool. Ecco my old friend.
Ecco...the one I love..."That's it, I am tired of going so slow!" she suddenly sang out loud, which brought curious gazes from Trellia and Radero. She grinned at them with an almost unnatural glow. "Trellia, sing louder. Radero, keep your song going as well, calf. I'm not about to let Ecco's descendent and the destined of Glyph Caller blood let him down. If the Asterite wants his globe, then we find it."
Trellia whistled a laugh to Tara. "How can you be so sure of things?"
Tara averted her gaze again, muttering her answer. "Only because it's on our fins now, my great-eons granddaughter."
Meanwhile, Ecco was on the verge of his own victories. It was dawn now, and the Vortex drones could already be heard shuffling out of their respective quarters. There were muffled songs of despair coming from every direction. Ecco tried with all of his will to block out the noise of his kind, hurt and deprived of all hope. He had to unless he wished to be discovered.
He was traveling behind Kitnee as he led the other Killer Beasts to their stations. Ecco had on a muzzle to cover his beak and disable his sonar, chains around his fluke and body, and a faceplate to hide his eyes and star markings. In this part of the plan, he was to act as prisoner to the Killer Beasts. This way, he could be kept in confinement far from the other Singers, far from much communication, and especially far from harm. Industrious as the Vortex were, they were somewhat lazy when it came to capturing prisoners. Not many dolphins had the bravery and will to try and escape their bondage. Because it was so rare, whenever one did they were held on the lowest priority of the Vortex, their fate forever undecided and forgotten.
The mutant Orcas, despite their great strength, had the duty of searching for and recapturing the escaped dolphins. To Ecco's relief, the Vortex guards paid them no mind when they passed the upper chambers toward where the Queen was kept. Ecco could see the building clearly; it rose from the ocean's disabled surface, several thousands of feet into the air. Connected from it were water tubes, which the Vortex and their dolphin servants traveled through to the central region. There the Singers would be put to work, tortured, or fed to the various Vortex animals when they were deemed useless.
Ecco watched from behind the glass tubes they were traveling up. The dolphins were herded out from separate cells and prisons, each of them wearing a band around their fins denoting where they were stationed. Kitnee had told Ecco all about how the dolphins were used and separated.
Those with white bands were for simple maintenance work, repairing any machinery that went faulty. Those with blue bands built and added to the grand tower. The Singers with green bands were towards the lower end of the work spectrum; the ones deemed unfit to work because of their rebellion and beliefs. They were tortured each day with horrendous work and no sustenance.
Finally, the ones with red bands had Ecco's heart swelling and aching with anger. These Singers were doomed to die, fed either to the Vortex Queen or the carnivorous animals brought from the Vortex home world. His kind, after so many years with Earth's seas under Vortex control, was weakened beyond recovery.
"Tragic, isn't it?" Kitnee's rough voice broke the still and torturous silence after a few moments; "I often hated being an Orca, being the only species favored for power by the Vortex. I would much rather have died than taken part in all of this."
Ecco could only nod in agreement, staring out again as they rose in the water tube above the sounds of pain and anguish. He remembered the promise he made to Kone, wondering where his mate was being kept. I vowed to free my kind from this tyranny once and for all, he coached himself, I too would rather die than ignore that.
Finally, they entered a chamber inside the great tower. Using the Vortex language, Kitnee and the other Killer Beasts requested permission from the guards of the prisoners to relieve them of duty. They gratefully agreed and started to swim off behind a partition separating the prisoner's cells. What they didn't expect was that a few of Kitnee's friends were waiting for them there. Ecco heard a muffled screech from them, nothing more, as he was escorted to a cell.
Once there, Kitnee removed Ecco's muzzle and chains, but left on his faceplate to hide his markings; for certainly the Queen would recognize him. "Okay, remember our plan," he reminded Ecco, "Your job here is to free these prisoners and have them lead you to the Queen's quarters, which is only five levels from where we are. I will gather all of the Orcas and lead a raid on the working grounds. That will keep the Vortex drones distracted while you all destroy the Queen's power source. Right about now that would be her feeding state. Disconnect the machine from her, empty the food stores, and attack with all your power. Once she tries to escape in larval form, all of you find a way to lead her within the machine. The only true way to destroy the Queen is to crush her, and even in larval form she never actually entered the machine herself. That's her only weakness; the Vortex are terribly claustrophobic of very tight areas. Once the Queen's brain is crushed, so will be her hold on her drones. They will disappear, and so will the Vortex side of us."
He nodded. "Thanks." He chuckled, "You know, you're nothing like the Kitnee I knew. When we were young you've always been the cautious one."
The great mutant Orca just chuckled back, showing his rows of brilliantly sharp teeth. "Perhaps it's the Vortex blood. Or maybe I've just seen too much pain and hurt to ever stay myself anymore. Either way..." he rolled his eyes upward as if remembering something from far away, "I wish you luck as always, my friend."
Ecco smiled. "As I do you, Kitnee. Try not to get yourself killed up there."
He smiled wryly. "Me? There is no way they ever can." With that, he called the other Killer Beasts behind him and headed down the tube again. Ecco turned toward the cells, where prisoners were kept.
The downcast Singers lifted their heads as they saw him approaching. His faceplate gleamed in the small bits of sunlight that streamed in through the various holes that was the result of neglect on the building. His song of greeting to them seemed to make them all glance in his direction. These were the dolphins that always tried to escape, who had their streak of rebelliousness still within them. Surely, these were the ones who could best cooperate with Ecco.
The largest of one group in the middle sang back to him, challenging. "My name is Hunju, formerly R-763. Who goes there, friend or foe?"
Ecco hung back in the shadows, struck by what he just remembered. This is she! Kone's lost mate! She is reminiscent of Tara, if she is the leader of the rebels here.
"Answer us!" she demanded again.
Ecco chuckled and entered within full view of all of them. "My name is Ecco. And I've come to save you all."