#mount ebott

What was now the meeting room may have been a storage hold at some point, or perhaps a vault of some sort. The door was heavy, and one of the few in the compound that possessed a lock. The inside was large, which had been their primary reason for converting it into their boardroom, and just as sturdy and plain as the rest of the concrete bunker they’d been squatting in. A large wooden table, much cheaper than what many of the Toppat elites were used to, had been moved inside, and decorated with a single cloth covering. Instead of the cushioned office chairs they’d each grown accustomed to, the board members sat on cheap metal folding chairs picked up by an incognito member during a trip to town. There was a steady murmur of conversation as the heads of the Toppat clan whispered among themselves, everything from polite conversation to haggard complaints. All that noise, however, was interrupted by the chime of a bell, prompting everyone to fall to silence.

The meeting had officially begun.

For a short while, nobody spoke. The silence was thick and awkward. Carol Cross, sitting to the left of the head of the table, turned to address the man in the leader’s chair, “Sir, as the Chief, you’re the one who-”

“I ain’t the Chief.” Was the curt reply of the Right Hand Man, leaned back with his arms crossed. He looked annoyed to even be there, which was fair, considering his ill husband was confined to a bed on the other end of the compound. Everyone in the room exchanged awkward looks at the comment; Sven, sitting near the door on the opposite end, twiddled his thumbs and kept his gaze down, guilt tempered only by the comforting hand of Burt on his shoulder.

“Err, right,” Miss Cross replied evenly, keeping her tone calculatingly neutral, “But seeing as the current Chief is... indisposed, the board has elected to make you the acting Chief. So you’re the one who has to call the meeting to order.”

“Fine.” The Right Hand leaned forward, grabbing the gavel his husband must have used hundreds of times during these meetings, and, with a bored expression that could rival even Burt Curtis’, let his hand fall so that the gavel hit the table with the weakest smack any of them had ever heard. He then set the gavel down again and resumed his relaxed posture. “There. You’re called to order.”

Carol Cross looked frustrated, but went along with it. “Fine. I’ll begin with a summary of our current situation: Our finances are in utter disarray. All of our assets were on that orbital station, and what little we were able to secure before its destruction amounts to a pittance. A large portion of our numbers are either dead or scattered; we’ve deduced that if they haven’t shown up here by now, they’re not going to. Morale is incredibly low, and with the Chief’s current state, I don’t see it raising anytime soon. We don’t know how long we can stay here before the government finds us out. Our situation is dire, perhaps the most dire it has ever been.”

“I’ve... dug around into some of the old paperwork left lying around here,” Sven volunteered, shrinking in on himself as his words attracted the stares of his superiors, “We aren’t as trapped as we initially suspected – Terrance Suave had used his portion of the Toppat’s wealth to purchase numerous safehouses. I have the official deeds here.” Sven laid the papers out for everyone to peruse, “They’re fairly scattered, so direct communication would be a challenge, but from what I can tell they are all low-key, so-”

“Ridiculous!” Poshley objected, slamming his ornate cane down on the concrete floor, “We’re already in an incredibly weakened position – no thanks to you – and you’d have us all scatter?!”

“You’re right.” Burt remarked, drumming on the table rhythmically with his fingers. “Let’s go with your plan instead- oh, wait, you don’t have one, do you?”

“Why are you even here?!” The white-hatted elite pushed himself out of his chair, into a standing position, “Now that you aren’t the right hand, you have no business being present while we discuss such sensitive matters.”

“The boy was an integral part of our organization during the Chief’s absence.” Objected Macbeth, scowling sourly at his fellow elite. “You may not like him, but he deserves your respect!”

“Deserves respect after the mess that was Sven’s reign? Hardly.”

“That was on me.” In his current state, not much could’ve gotten Sven to speak up – but blaming Burt for his mistakes was going too far. “Burt’s done nothing wrong.”

The six elites plus Burt squabbled and bickered, many standing from their chairs to more effectively shout at each other. Blame was tossed around like a ball, and it kept hitting Sven repeatedly in the face. Nobody could agree on anything, and the chaos bled out into the hallways, where passing Toppats tiptoed around their arguing superiors with silent, cat-like steps.

Eventually, the fighting was broken into silence by the loud thud of a fist crashing hard into the table. The Right Hand Man was now also standing, and his annoyed boredom had transformed into cold fury.

“Enough.” He said, his quiet voice holding extreme weight. Instantly everyone was sat back down, staring at him with wide doe eyes. He huffed, and the fury evaporated, leaving only the exhaustion plain on his face. “Way I see it, we’ve got two priorities: Savin’ Reg, and gettin’ all the Toppats to safe shelter. Sven’s idea is a good one. Gene, I want you to work out the logistics. Figure out ‘ow to split everyone up and keep in communication.”

“Er, yes sir.” Having only recently become a more active member of the clan, Fredrickson seemed quite nervous, but his years of experience as the mayor of a fairly large city gave him all the experience he needed to handle the job.

The Right Hand nodded in acknowledgment. “Good. That just leaves Reginald.”

“We...” She seemed reluctant, but Carol Cross had always been the realist of the Toppats, so she pressed onward, “We may have to consider what will happen if the Chief’s state turns out to be permanent-”

“You don’t know Reginald like I do.” Her attempts at reason were met with one of the dirtiest looks any of them had ever seen the Right Hand give. “’E’ll bounce back. ‘E always does. So does anyone have any GOOD ideas?”

A moment of hush fell over the elites.

Burt raised his hand from his position behind Sven. “Well, we may have something, sir.” When he got the leader’s approval, Burt took out his cell phone and pulled up his favourite social media account. “Last night, these videos and pictures were uploaded to some rando account while we were out jail-breaking. They seem to suggest that the ancient monsters of myth have not only returned from whatever exile we put them through, but that the Government is actively hiding them from us.”

“And that helps us... how?” Mister Schwarz asked with crossed arms.

“According to ancient legend,” Sven hopped in, his nights struggling to grasp the Witch’s excited explanations coming back to him, “All magic was taught to humans by monsters. They’re the originators, and the experts.” A light of understanding came to the Right Hand’s eyes, and for the first time he looked engaged in the conversation. “If there’s anyone who knows how to help the Chief, it’s them.”

“I already see several major problems with this plan.” Miss Cross leaned forward, using her fingers to count the problems as she listed them. “One: we have no clue where they are. Two: Even if we did know, we don’t have the numbers or any weapons to go up against the military. Three: What if the monsters wouldn’t help us? Do YOU know how to fight magical monsters? Because I sure as hell don’t-”

“Easy, easy.” Burt murmured. He pulled back his phone and scrolled a little, searching for something. When he found it, he turned the phone around so that everyone could see it. “We DO know where the monsters are. They’re on Mount Ebott.” When his answer was echoed back with vague murmurs of confusion, Burt swallowed his annoyance and elaborated, “You know, that haunted mountain? The one nobody ever comes back from alive? Yeah, that’s the place.”

“And you know this how?” Asked Poshley with a skeptical quirk of his brow.

“I’m surprised you don’t already know, seeing as you apparently know everything about me.” Burt quipped with a roll of his eyes, and Sven sunk into his chair a little as the other elites stared at Burt and, by proxy, Sven himself. “Ebott City is my hometown. I grew up staring at that mountain every day from my bedroom window. If the backgrounds from those videos aren’t Mount Ebott, I’ll eat my hat.”

“Even supposing you’re right,” Gene Fredrickson said, wearing his worry clearly on his face. There was a reason he wasn’t involved in most of the more dangerous stuff, “What about the Government? There’s no way they’ll let you anywhere near the monsters.”

Burt raised a finger and took in a breath to answer.

And held it.

And held it longer.

And then... “Uh, I guess we’d sneak in?”

This plan was greeted by a chorus of groans; Miss Cross facepalmed, Fredrickson sighed deeply, Poshley scoffed and scowled, Macbeth rolled his head back to stare at the ceiling, and Schwarz huffed and crossed his arms. Even the Right Hand Man, who at first glance didn’t seem to move a muscle, was staring dead-eyed at Burt, very much projecting his desire to be elsewhere to the stoic man.

Sven, the only one not to join in on the groaning, sat back in seat and stroked his chin, staring intently at the edge of the table.

“Hey, it could work.” Burt objected. “We just sneak in, grab a useful looking monster, and sneak back out. What could go wrong?”

“Aside from everything?” Macbeth asked flatly.

“You four barely got out of that prison alive.” Pointed out Fredrickson, shifting a little in his seat. “Arguably, one of you didn’t.” That earned him a dirty look from the Right Hand Man, though Fredrickson thankfully didn’t take notice. “And this camp is going to be even more secure. There’s no way you can get in there and steal a whole monster without getting caught.”

“Well,” Burt sat back down, wind taken out of his sails, “I don’t hear any better ideas-”

“The caves.”

Every single person in the room turned to look at Sven. His eyes saw none of them, focused squarely on the edge of the table, and his hands were clasped together so tightly they were starting to turn red.

“Burt told me about Ebott while we were waiting for the meeting to start.” He explained, not looking up at the group even once. “The legends say that nobody who climbed the mountain ever returned. I think we’ve all been assuming that’s just where they’re keeping the monsters – because nobody goes there anyways, because of the legends – but what if the monsters and the legend were connected? What if the monsters were in the mountain?” Finally Sven looked up, “Burt, you said that the mountain was hollow, right?”

“I said it was probably hollow, on account of it being a volcano in the past,” Answered his previous Right Hand.

“Them being inside the mountain makes so much sense, when you put all the pieces together.” Every other elite was looking at Sven with various levels of confusion, but the Right Hand Man slowly sat up straight, listening more intently than he had so far. Seeing that raised Sven’s confidence. “We may not be able to approach the monsters directly, but its more than likely that they left quite a bit behind when they fled Mount Ebott. I believe searching for clues there is our best bet.”

“That sounds like a lot of guesswork, Sven-” Poshley began, but was instantly shut down by the Right Hand Man.

“But it’s good guesswork.” The acting Chief paused for a moment to think, then nodded. “Al’ight, so it’s settled, then. Gene, Carol, you two prepare everyone to ‘ead out. We’re on borrowed time, and the longer we stay in this bunker, the easier it’ll be for the government to find us. In the meanwhile, I’ll take Reg and check out the caves underneath Mount Ebott. We’ll leave immediately.”

Sven instantly leapt out of his seat. “I’ll come with you!” He blurted out. After a moment he realized his outburst had attracted everyone’s attention to him, and sheepishly pulled himself into a more composed posture. “I mean, we can’t have anything happening to you or the Chief, yeah? I’ll come along as a bodyguard.”

The Right Hand Man made a sour expression, but acquiesced. “Al’ight. I suppose you can come.”

“Then I guess I’ll come along, too.” Burt volunteered, sounding just as relaxed as ever.

“Oi! This ain’t a field trip!”

“We need you here, Curtis.” Cross countered sharply. “You’re our foremost expert in communications. You need to help us coordinate the split.”

“Yes, go back to doing something you’re actually good at.” Scoffed Poshley, looking way too pleased at this turn of events. His chipper expression was only tarnished by Macbeth pointedly jabbing him in the side with an elbow.

Sven placed a hand on Burt’s shoulder, like Burt had done for him at the beginning of the meeting, and this seemed to prevent him from doing anything rash. Burt took a deep breath and said, “I’ve trained my unit well. Jackson can do my job just fine, has been since I became the Right Hand Man.” Burt’s eyes, steady and unyielding, stared straight into Carol Cross’.

“Even so-”

“Be straight with me, ma’am: Are you saying I’m not allowed to go?”

For a moment Miss Cross bristled, not used to be questioned like that by her subordinates, but inhaled before responding, “It’s in the better interest of the clan that you-”

“Okay.” Burt took off his hat, headphones and all. “I quit.”

“Burt!” Sven gaped at the other man, aghast. Every other elite, even Poshley, looked shock by the nonchalant announcement. “You- you can’t be serious.”

Burt shrugged, looking quite calm for a man who just casually quite a well-known criminal organization. “Sure I am. If they change their minds, then I rejoin and get to come with you. If they don’t, then I’m no longer under their control and still get to come with you. Either way, I get what I want.”

“You’ll get yourself killed!” Scwartz scolded with a scowl. “Do you really think the Government’s gonna overlook you just ‘cause you ‘quit’?”

“You overestimate my capacity for forethought, sir.” Burt smiled sweetly at all his bosses. “Now, how would you like to proceed?”

Miss Cross looked very much like she just sucked an extremely sour lemon, but managed to get out through her gritted teeth, “Fine. Go. We’re all splitting up anyways. But the next time we have a meeting, Mister Curtis, we will discuss the consequences of your actions.” She turned her stare to the Right Hand Man. “I think we’re done here today-”

That was all he needed to bang the gavel down, officially adjourning the meeting, before zipping out of the room so quickly Sven only saw a blur of red. The rest of the elites filed after, grumbling among themselves as they left. Macbeth patted Sven’s shoulder as he left, which Sven supposed was a show of support, but other than that none of the elites acknowledged him. This left Sven alone in the boardroom with Burt, who leaned back in his chair with the type of smug arrogance Sven normally associated with the Chief.

“Hey,” Burt greeted way too casually for what just happened.

“What the actual fuck, Burt?” Sven responded, all but collapsing into the seat next to his.

“Hmm?”

“You- you could’ve gotten in serious trouble for that bluff!” As he spoke, Sven gestured wildly with his hands, not sure how else to get his vast frustrations across to his friend, “What if they’d actually fired you?”

In response, Burt winked, still keeping up that dumb smirk. “Bold of you to assume I was bluffing.”

“I- You- But- GAH!” There were no words to describe how utterly idiotic Sven’s best friend was.

“Well, I couldn’t very well let you idiots go alone.” Burt looked away. “The Right Hand Man would die for the Chief, we know that. And the Chief isn’t exactly in any condition to look out for himself. That leaves you, and with your guilt complex? No doubt, you’d get yourself killed protecting them. Somebody has to be the responsible adult here.”

“And that’s supposed to be you?!”

“Yup.” Burt bounced out of his seat, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “C’mon, let’s go pack up. If we’re not ready to go before the Right Hand, you know he’ll leave us behind.”

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Indeed, after both men quickly packed their bags with the bare essentials (clothing, weapons, hiking gear Burt insisted on ‘just in case’, etc.) and managed to get out to the front of the bunker to see the Right Hand Man tossing some bags into the back end of a vehicle. White and small – not exactly the luxury they were used to, but it was better to be subtle in these trying times.

The Right Hand caught sight of them as they approached, and grumbled out, “Oh, it’s you lot. Well, go on and put yer bags in the trunk.”

The duo complied, and Sven walked up to grab one of the bags piled off to the side.

“Oi!”

Sven turned to see the Right Hand Man staring daggers at them both, shrill and cold as always.

“It’s disrespectful not ta greet the Chief.”

At first Sven didn’t understand quite what the Right Hand was saying, but then spotted him, out of the corner of his eye. The Chief was there, sitting in the passenger's seat of the car. He was dressed in clean clothes and sitting upright, which Sven supposed was an improvement from when he’d last seen the fallen man. For once, luck was on Sven’s side; the Chief’s gaze was directed out at the empty space that surrounded the bunker, so Sven wasn’t forced to stare into the dull, empty orbs which had once been lively and passionate.

Burt, too, found the Chief, and muttered under his breath, “Can he even hear us like this?”

Ignoring his friend for the moment, Sven approached and bowed his head awkwardly. “Ah, good afternoon, sir. I’m, uh, sorry I didn’t see you before.”

“Hey Chief.” Burt mumbled awkwardly, kicking at the ground and purposefully not looking at Reginald.

Their separate greetings were scrutinized for a moment by the Right Hand Man. After a moment of hesitation, he must have decided that was good enough. “Al’ight, Sven, ‘elp me get these into the trunk. Burt, replace the license plates with these fakes. One of our young’uns stole this yesterday, so we need to make sure it can’t be tracked.”

They set to work, with Sven grimacing as he picked up one of the bags. “What’s in these, anyways?”

“Necessities.” The Right Hand grumbled as he picked one up. “’at one ‘as toiltries in it. Shampoo, conditioners, soaps.”

Ah. To be honest, Sven hadn’t thought about those.

The trunk was loaded, the license plates were changed, and they were off. Sven and Burt huddled into the backseat of the car, with Burt watching the scenery fly by outside their window and Sven sitting upright, twiddling his thumbs and trying desperately not to stare at Reginald sitting directly in front of him. What didn’t help matters was that the Right Hand was constantly talking to Reginald, pointing out things they passed on the road or reminiscing about the most random of things. In the depths of his heart, Sven knew this was just the Right Hand’s way of coping with what was happening, but knowing that didn’t make Sven’s rolling stomach any stiller.

God, this was awful.

“So, um, sir?” Sven cautiously questioned, and the Right Hand looked at him through the rear-view mirror, his eyes darkening as they met Sven’s through the reflection. It made Sven shiver. “Have there been any changes in Chief Reginald?”

“No.” That was all Sven got. One single, curt word, spat out with an obviously forced neutrality.

“Did the doctor find anything?” He tried again.

“No.”

This wasn’t going well. “Uh, do you think he’s aware of what’s going on?”

One could see the snarl that formed on the Right Hand’s face growing larger and larger. “He’s hurt, not brain dead. Of course ‘e knows what’s bloody goin’ on.”

Sensing that he’d successfully worn down the Right Hand’s last nerve, Sven instead turned to Burt to relieve his growing anxiety. “Ah, Burt, you said you grew up in Ebott, yeah? Do you know anything about the monsters?”

“Monsters, no.” Burt dragged his attention from the scrolling landscape over to Sven. “Mount Ebott, on the other hand...”

Burt tossed Sven a coy smirk. The former Chief had to roll his eyes and wave for him to keep going before Burt continued.

“Everyone knows to never go up to the mountain. We’re told the legends when we’re still too young to really understand them: ‘No one who goes to climb the mountain has ever returned’. My Granddad told me it was because the mountain was haunted by the ghosts of soliders who had died from some war a long, long time ago, and that they mistook people who climbed up the mountain for enemy soldiers. My dad told me it was just populated with mountain lions, but I don’t think either of them really knew anything. Every family had their own horror story about someone they knew trying to climb the mountain, or a dog dying in the middle of the night and being buried close to the mountain, only to return just fine and dandy a few weeks later, with body parts missing or decayed. I think most of those were exaggerated, but I do have one personal story about it.

“Back in elementary school, there was this kid in my class a long, long time ago. Their name was really long and really feminine, but they preferred we all called them Max. They weren’t popular really, exactly. Didn’t hang out with a bunch of people, but everyone liked them. Not a single soul in the school thought one bad thing about them. Their cousin, sure, he was a little brat, but not them. They were a studious, reliable kid. Had big glasses and was always writing in this ratty old notebook they carried around. I think they had some family problems or something, ‘cause everyone in the school knew that if you asked and gave them your lunch money, Max would do your homework for you. We weren’t close or anything, but I talked to them a few times. They were a nice kid.

“Then, one day, their cousin came to school really upset. Told everyone that Max had gotten in an argument with their parents and ran away. He’d tried to follow them, he said, but Max stopped him and made him go home. He... said they headed towards Mount Ebott.

“We never saw Max again.

“It was all anyone talked about for the rest of the year. Everyone was talking about how they were eaten by wolves or carried off by the wind spirits or had fallen into a pit and turned into a cyborg. A whole lotta rumour, damned few facts. Only one who wasn’t running their mouth off was their cousin. Met the kid only once or twice, but they were pretty quiet for the rest of the year, and I didn’t see them at all after that. Heh, one thing I did hear was that one of our asshole classmates told the kid Max ran off because he was such a horrible little twerp. Kid punched him so hard, he actually lost two of his teeth! Ha!”

Burt chuckled for a short moment, and then sighed, suddenly turning melancholy. “Guess we know what happened now.”

“You think the monsters killed them?” Sven asked. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the Right Hand Man’s gaze on them in the rear view mirror.

“Honestly? We only saw one human kid in the video from the monster camp. Unless they were out of sight somewhere, I think the monsters must have killed them.”

The ride continued in melancholic silence.

--------------------

Sven fell asleep, at some point, but woke up when he felt the car gently slow to a stop. Burt had just opened his door, and the Right Hand Man was making his way around the car to help Reginald out of his seat.

“There it is.” Murmured Burt, leaning on the hood of the vehicle as he gazed into the horizon. “Mount Ebott.”

It stood tall and proud above them. While listening to Burt’s descriptions, Sven had expected a gray tower of sharp, jagged spirals, complete with swirling dark clouds and the crackle of thunder. The actual of Mount Ebott was peaceful and inviting, with rolling green slopes, cushioned on all sides by a pleasant forest and sound-tracked with chirping birds and chattering chipmunks. It was lovely. Peaceful.

Nothing else would have made Sven more suspicious.

The car door opening to his side jarred Sven out of his thoughts, and he jumped up to offer his aid. “Here, sir, let me-”

“I’ve got it.” The Right Hand scoffed, sending Sven a glare that stopped him in his tracks. He first reached across to unbuckle his husband, then slowly, cautiously, pulled Reginald to his feet. Almost immediately Reginald’s legs failed him, and he would have fallen down onto the dirt, were it not for the Right Hand and Sven’s interference. His body was heavy and limp, and Sven tried not to think of it as dead weight. Once Reginald was up, the Right Hand pushed Sven off, perhaps a touch harder than necessary. “I said, I’ve got this. Ya wanna be useful so bad, go grab our bags.” His attention turned completely to Reginald as he muttered under his breath, “Can’t screw that up.”

The cold words made Sven reel back, and the cold glare that accompanied them made his throat run dry. He stood helplessly to the side as the Right Hand arranged Reginald so that the man was hanging off his shoulder. At first the Chief could only be dragged along, but, to his credit, after a few steps Reginald seemed to get the idea and sluggishly began putting one foot in front of the other.

The Right Hand Man did blame Sven. Not that he hadn’t suspected it, but...

“Hey,” Burt, as always, took the initiative to drag Sven back to reality, “He’s not actually mad at you. He’s just scared.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” Sven mumbled, walking to the back of their tiny white car to pull out his, Reginald, and the Right Hand’s personal bags. He tossed Burt his, and decided not to wrestle it back when Burt took Sven’s own as well.

“I know it feels hopeless now.” Burt exaggerated needing to jump up to grab and close the trunk. They both knew he didn’t need to, but it made Sven smile all the same. “But we’re all still breathing. As long as we’re still breathing, we can fix this. It’ll all be okay, you’ll see.”

“Kind of hard right now.” Sven adjusted his top hat so that his eyes were better shielded from the sun. Reginald and the Right hand were already ahead of them, but between how slowly they were waddling along and the vegetation they’d have to cut through, Sven wasn’t particularly worried about losing them.

Burt suddenly wasn’t looking Sven in the eyes. He was looking down at the ground, arms crossed. “Look, I know it’s rough right now. But hey, just keep in mind... the Chief wanted you to live. He wouldn’t have saved you if he didn’t. He’d be upset if he saw you giving up after he sacrificed himself for you.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t have-” Sven let tumble out of his mouth before his brain could stop it. Burt, for what it was worth, managed not to look completely horrified, but he did become decently panicked.

“NO.” Burt suddenly took both of Sven’s hands in his own. “No, don’t ever say that ever again. The Chief cares about you. I care about you. I-” Burt paused only for a brief second to glance over at the Right Hand before speaking to Sven in hushed tones. “I should’ve saved you. I was closer, I could’ve gotten you out of there before that crystal exploded. But I just... froze. It was my job as your Right Hand to keep you safe. I’m the one who failed.”

Sven swallowed past a sudden lump in his throat. The intimate emotion present in Burt’s eyes, past the mask of his face, was a new experience for both of them.

“It’s not going to happen again, Sven. This time, I’m going to keep you safe.”

This was the first time Sven had ever seen Burt this determined. He found himself returning the sentiment with a genuine smile. From personal experience, Sven knew an affirmation of innocence wouldn’t alleviate the guilt, so he squeezed Burt’s hands reassuringly and told him, “We’ll do what we can to save the clan and fix the Chief together. We’ll fix our mistakes.”

I’ll fix my mistake. No matter what it takes.

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Okay, so a) I did not expect this chapter to be ready this soon, because b) I did not expect this chapter to be this short. Oh well, it is what it is.