I had no idea what just happened. It was supposed to be a vacation that I decided to join my friends on.
Chase, TJ, and Jenna.

Since I had nothing planned, I decided to join them on a trip to their hometown of Echo.
It all started just fine; there wasn't too much here, but it was very comfy and away from the big city.
I also met their old friends: Flynn, Leo, and Carl.

We were all getting along just fine; enjoying each other's company, that was until we all decided to have a little picnic by the lake.

It happened so fast, I turned away for a minute, and the next thing I know, everyone was arguing, most of the heat going towards the tall gila, Flynn, who seemed to be prodding TJ for answers about something.

The fight only lasted for a few minutes before Flynn stormed off in a huff. I wanted to ask what that was all about, but to no surprise, none of them wanted to talk about it. I didn't take much offense to it because it really didn't involve me, but it didn't change the fact that the mood was more than broken, and everyone seemed to go about their business separately, aside from Chase, who decided to go with Leo.

Part of me wanted to either do the same, or join one of my friends and attempt to make some conversation...

My curiosity however told me that this probably was something bigger than I knew, and that this wasn't going to be only time this subject was going to be brought up.

Not waiting for any sort of acknowledgement, I turned and walked in the direction Flynn took off, breaking into a jog as soon as I was out of sight from my friends.

I wanted to know what that was about. In addition to that, for some reason, I was drawn to Flynn for some reason, so I needed to speak to him.

It didn't take long to catch up to him, and I could tell he heard my footsteps as he turned his head to face me. His face was stiff as he was angry, but I felt it soften up a bit when he saw it was me; most likely not expecting me of all people; if anyone, to try and catch up to him.

_______
|Aladar: Hey, wait up!
_______
|Flynn: Oh, it's you... What do you want?

He was still mad, but I could tell that despite that, he couldn't really take it out on me alone. I don't think I'm going to get answers from him easily, but whatever it was about, I knew he wanted to talk about it; it was written all over his face.

Problem was, I probably was the last person to talk about it, given how it didn't involve me.
_______
|Aladar: I want to know what that was all about.
_______
|Flynn: What's it to you?


_________________

So, I've been an Echo fan for quite a long time; way before the game was even completed.
Flynn of course was my original husbando. I am very fond of this handsome lizard.

However, just like Knight's College, I always viewed Aladar to be his own character in this adventure, not a stand-in for the protagonist, Chase.

I also like to imagine that Aladar and Chase are on parallel stories, by what mean by this is that while Aladar is on Flynn's route, Chase is on Leo's, and vice-versa.
The story of Echo is that of a strange mix of Flynn and Leo's routes, each a bit different depending on who's with Aladar and Chase

I got two more of these fake Echo Screenshots in the works, the second one with Mr. Obvious, and a third, special one with my current Echo husbando~

Don't think I could be happier with the way this turned out.
Tipsy-Taiga from Twitter/Bsky did a wonderful job on it~ https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:io.....fcs76qy33inww4