Wish you were Sober || Boat Boys

17: Over This

Etho teleported into the headquarters and was met with a full meeting room. About a dozen eyes all pointed at him. "Sit, Agent Ender. It's urgent." Despite his words, BigB remained levelheaded. Etho took a seat next to Blaze, who seemed anxious. "What's going on?" He whispered, the blond shrugged.

"Torchy and I don't know what's going on." Blaze whispered back. Etho didn't think this was the time to be making jokes and pretending his childhood imaginary friend is real but maybe this is how Blaze copes with stress. BigB stands up and starts to talk, "Since all of you are here now, we can start."

The man pulls out one of the society's phones, the lended phones. The one he pulls out has a green lanyard attached to the clear phone case. Whilst the clear phone case has a busy black and white pattern on it. "Lykos has been taken." Etho's eyes widen, he blinks. "WHAT?!" Cuteguy yells, standing up immediately.

"He has been taken by possibly the villains, we found out as he tried to contact Hotguy and gave this voicemail..." BigB runs the audio from Hotguy's phone; "Should we take his ring? This might be the only chance." A voice says, Etho can recognize it as the villain, Orange.

"No, he's not... unfixable." Etho suddenly feels all eyes on him. Horrified looks from everyone else in the room. It's his voice that's playing out of the tape—but that can't be! He wasn't—He was at home! "Remember, the Listener can also mimic voices." BigB reminds the group, Etho internally prayed that his boss trusted him. He knows that Etho would never betray them like that right?

BigB's gaze remained on Etho, like he was trying to analyze Etho's reaction to all of this. "When?" Cuteguy asked, Etho looked to him. The dirty blonde had one hand gripped onto his shirt whilst the other rested in Hotguy's hair (kinda odd, but there's more pressing matters to talk about). "Just today. It's been about 2 hours since that voicemail."

2 fucking hours.

"Are you kidding me? The first 48 hours are most important and we've already burned through 2?" Cuteguy's comment made Etho feel sick to his stomach. This is a missing persons case. And this one can't go public. No way is BigB allowing this to go public—if they find out that Lykos, a hero, has been taken, the entirety of New York will go into even more of a panic.

That means no volunteer search parties.

No extensive police searches.

This one has to remain underground. Silent. That also means that it'll be harder to track the villains down if they don't have widespread help. "Hotguy, Bubbles, and I had to track down his phone. Luckily it was untouched." BigB picked up Lykos's phone, handing Hotguy's back to him.

"We've scanned through all of his recent messages, calls, bank account, photos, and browsing history." BigB uses their projector to project a series of images from Lykos's phone—how much time did they have to make this fucking slideshow presentation? Etho sat there, he could be helping—they could all be out there searching for the missing hero.

But instead they sit inside, watching a powerpoint flip through. "Were any of you made aware of his addiction to cigarettes?" BigB called it out as it was. No bullshit, no 'it's just a stress reliever.' The entire meeting room was silent, Etho looked to Cuteguy, who seemed extremely confused amidst his anger.

The Society was very strict on drug use. If they are to drink whilst transformed they have to tell BigB directly, let alone the use of other non-socially acceptable drugs. Etho raised his hand, "I knew." It felt like shame was burning into his every being, coating his insides, but he had to. If this somehow helps in the investigation Etho will fess up.

BigB stared at him in disappointment, "And you didn't tell me?" Etho could tell the head of the Heroic Society was on his last straw. Sure, heros have been taken before but never by the villains. Never by people who would actually be able to put up a fight against superpowers. "I misjudged the situation, sir. I was merely 18." 'Liar' Etho thought to himself, he wasn't 18 when it first happened. Thankfully nobody in the room has the power to mindread.