/- Holy hell, I got a review! And here I was, thinking that the poor Ecco fanfic section had gone unnoticed in the last few months... ;)

To answer your question, Ovo, Donovan has been a name I picked a long time ago for all sorts of characters. I used to play on various MUD's, MUXes, and the like, and I was invariably named Donovan. Now, a lot of people seem to assume that I stole it from some game or something ("Hey! You're a Darkstalkers fan, eh?"), but the only game I've played that had a character named Donovan in it was Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. Although, he does seem to hand out opened cans of whoop-ass in that game...

Now about my writing style - bear with me here, I'll get to the actual story sooner or later ;) - I know that it's rather choppy, and I use too many elipses... See, there I go again. I'm working on that via practice, which is a big reason I'm writing this thing in the first place. Hopefully, the chapters will get better with time... if not, at least I can have some fun. :)

Also, if anyone has an example, be it book or fanfic, of two characters trying to have a conversation in different languages, would you please notify me? Hell, I can't even use BODY language to clear up communication between Donovan and our beloved dolphin, so any examples of writing in this context would be appreciated.

Now, was there anything else I needed to say... no? Well, on with Chapter 3, then. =P

Happy Reading! -- Icebreaker -/

Donovan stepped off of his boat, surveying the glare of the open sand behind a battered pair of sunglasses. "Well, here we are... more or less."

He was standing about twenty feet in from the coastline, as the endless noise of the surf came crashing in on the beach around him. Beautiful palm trees were all around, and a crab could be seen here or there, scuttling across the sand.

Ecco, on the other hand, was about twenty feet OUT from the coastline, where he had remained since he had stopped pushing the boat. Now, any heavy object, such as a boat, takes a good amount of force to stop it if it happens to be moving rather speedily. Ecco had not bothered to stop Donovan's watercraft.

Consequently, the thing was just as far inland as Donovan was, almost completely beached on the sand and, apparently, propped up against a palm tree.

Donovan sighed as he surveyed the damage. "Well, I'll fix this later... the satellite jockies back at the labs probably picked up that craft, and I'll bet there's a slew of messages on my home machine." He turned and whistled at the dolphin out in the water. "And I still have to find a way to communicate with this guy... I'll give the old man a shot."

"Hey, you!" Donovan yelled, out in Ecco's direction. "Stay put for a minute, I've gotta go get my wheels." He stayed for a minute longer, making sure the dolphin wasn't going anywhere, before running up through the palm trees at a fast jog. "Good thing that dolphin crash-landed less than a mile from the parking lot..." he thought, as he rushed down a sandy path cutting inland.

Ecco also contemplated the situation. "What was that creature babbling about? And, perhaps more importantly, why is he running away?" He looked at the beach, glancing over Donovan's beached boat. "Aha! I know," he thought, as an idea struck him. "He must be going to get his elders! With something as unexpected as a Vortex attack, that has to be his current course of action." Ecco settled down for the moment, content that there was at least some semblance of a plan in action.

An image of Trellia came unbiiden into his mind. He was startled for a second. "Hrmm... wonder where that came from..."

The image started off an interesting train of thought. "If I am truly farther into the future than I was when accompanied by Trellia... then what has happened to the glorious civilization that those fliers had built?" He became more agitated now, his tail starting to churn up small amounts of water. "And the Asterite, what of him? I had thought he was all but invincible... perhaps he still exists in this timeline?"

Ecco closed his eyes, delving deeper into his mind's eye. "The Asterite always communicated without singing... perhaps... perhaps, if he was alive now, he would be able to talk without being able to see me?" He attuned his senses, concentrating on the voice of the Asterite, shutting out all outside stimulations. And there, right THERE... it was fuzzy, and came in pulses... a repetitive mantra that had been going on for who knows how long. Ecco, at first, couldn't make it out, but he concentrated still harder... his consciousness collapsing in on itself, down a a single pinpoint of existence, until he could hear the voice he thought might be gone forever.

"Ecco... Ecco... Ecco... Ecco..."

He was rudely awakened by a whistling noise, accompanied by a noise that was not unlike the noise one heard inside one's head when shocked by an eel. Ecco unwillingly came out of his trance, and stared at the beach. "The Asterite! He's alive! Oh, he's weak, but at least I can hear his voice..." He finally took notice of the current situation on the sand, and his mind became bright with another emotion: confusion. "What... in the world...?"

Donovan honked the horn again, trying to get the dolphin's attention. "I certainly hope he can at least understand enough to follow me." He looked down the beach, once again amazed at how... DESERTED it was. "I guess being a government-paid astrophysicist isn't that bad of a deal. I mean, you do get access to their private beach..."

Ecco tentatively came closer to the beach, close enough that his underside brushed against the seafloor. "What... is THAT thing?" he thought, as he looked up and down the length of Donovan's Jeep. "Is it some kind of machinery? Perhaps he is of Atlantis... they were supposedly skilled at this sort of thing..."

"Hey, dolphin!" cried out Donovan. "I'm gonna get moving here, so just follow me, allright?" He started easing the Jeep forward, keeping an eye on Ecco at all times. "C'mon, guy, just follow me... come on...."

"Ah! It appears to be some kind of machine that helps this creature move." Ecco looked at the vehicle as it slowly moved down the beach. "Perhaps this is the only way he can get to his elders...? I must inform these creatures of the danger they're in!" He started pumping his tail faster, keeping even with the car.

Donovan breathed a sigh of relief. "Excellent. I guess what they say about dolphin intelligence isn't ALL false..." He glanced at the speedometer, then thought back to the boat earlier. "Hrmm... the boat was going pretty fast... I wonder how speedy this guy REALLY is?" He incremented the speedometer until the needle went past twenty-five miles per hour... thirty... thirty-five... forty...

Ecco kept pace with the accelerating Jeep with ease. "Is that all the faster these things can go? I expected more out of an Atlantean..." He smirked and laughed inwardly. "I guess no manner of machinery can make up for that which dolphins are born with..."

"Wow, forty miles an hour? Wish I could swim that fast..." He kept his foot steady on the pedal. "No faster, though, wouldn't want to tire the little guy out. And besides, if I lose traction on this sand, it's not going to be a pretty picture..."

The unlikely pair continued on the path, both sea and land, towards a small beach house about ten miles away...

- - - - - - - - - -

Donovan stopped the car just outside the bungalow. He stepped out, looking back at the electric fence that seperated the government-owned beach from the privately owned expanse he was on now...

"God, this is gonna be kind of... awkward..." He brushed the back of his head with his hand as he made his approach to the building he was currently parked in front of, eventually stepping up on the porch, and raising his fist to knock on the door...

It opened before he got a chance to knock, revealing a rather old man in an open lab coat with a blue T-shirt underneath. His hair was a dark grey, and was tied back into a ponytail coming down to his shoulders. Both hands were propped on a gnarled, crooked walking stick, and his round, wire-rimmed glasses reflected the Florida sun back into Donovan's eyes.

They stood there, staring at each other. The old man was wearing an angry scowl, and Donovan attempted to smile before feeling self-conscious and reverting to a neutral stare.

Donovan cleared his throat before speaking. "It's, uh, good to see you Nicholas..."

"Whaddya want, Rescii?" Nicholas's voice was raspy, although it conveyed his anger rather well. "You've got about two seconds before I throw you off my property, so speak up."

"I, uh, need your help," said Donovan, fidgeting with the collar of his shirt. "If you'd just hear me out, I think you'll agree that it'll be worth it..."

The old man's eyebrows shot up at this. "Oh, really now? Well, this is a first..." He glanced over his shoulder before stepping to the side, beckoning Donovan to come in. "Let's hear what you've got to say, then."

Ecco, on the other hand, was in the ocean outside of Nicholas's bungalow. "Is this where the elders of his civilization live?" He pictured the grandiose halls of Atlantis, the great statues and flying buttresses, and then compared those images to the old man's rather humble abode. "No... no, this can't be right..."

"Hi!" someone said, and Ecco did a double-take.

"By the gods... who said that?" said Ecco, spinning around in the water.

"Well, me of course, stranger." A female dolphin came swimming up beside him, laughing slightly. "Don't tell me you scare THAT easily."

Ecco was silent, as he rejoiced inwardly that dolphinkind was still in existence. "Te... tell me, singer, what is your name?"

The other dolphin did a playful spin in the water before answering. "Well, the old man that lives in the house up there calls me Trellia. What's yours?"

It's kind of like getting a cold slap in the face when ome hears something like that. Not really painful, but it's sure as hell a surprise, and Ecco was currently stunned as such. But then he began to chuckle, then laugh uproariously. "Oh, but does fate have a sense of humor! Weird, perhaps twisted... but it's there."

He stopped laughing so hard, taking notice again of the dolphin beside him. "Oh, where are my manners. The members of my pod call me Ecco..."