The sound of a gavel rang out across the room twice, before the group of superheroes that had gathered all fell silent, and drew their attention to their leader, Nightbird.

"The Secret Society of Superheroes club is now in session," Nightbird said, putting his gavel to the side, "The purpose of this club is to fight injustice, to right all of that is wrong, and to preserve truth, justice, and peace in Lima. Now, first order of business – roll call!"

It didn't take very long to go through the roll call - Asian Persuasion, Blond Chameleon, Tarantula Head, and Sweet and Spicy, along with the new additions Doctor Y, Queen Bee, and The Human Brain – it had only taken a minute at most. Though, it wasn't much of a surprise – they were seriously lacking in members. With that in mind, Nightbird spoke.

"One of the main problems we have at the moment is numbers," He said, looking across the room, "Before our new members, there was only four of us excluding myself. We are really needing more recruits, and once this meeting is adjourned, you will all try and find at least one new member"

"We have been looking, Nightbird," Tarantula Head said "But it's hard. Not many people are willing to join us, and it's not exactly common to find someone with any sort of power."

"Well, Tarantula Head, you mustn't have been looking hard enough," said Nightbird a little impatiently "I found these three within a day," He gestured to Queen Bee, Doctor Why and The Human Brain; the latter of the two looking slightly out of place, and the former looking simply bored with what was going on "If you look hard enough, you will find someone. It doesn't need to be anything special! Just as long as they have any kind of super power, they can -"

A cawing noise cut him off. Ignoring the look everyone in the room that had sent him – apart from Asian Persuasion who had her head propped on her hand and lightly drumming the desk absentmindedly – Nightbird took his phone out from his pocket.

"What's this? A text just came through on my Nightphone!" He said, before opening the text.

"Have you spoken to Kurt? - Asian Persuasion"

Nightbird's face instantly fell as he read the text. It had been just over a month since he'd broken up with his boyfriend, but it still hurt like hell to think about it. Ever since the break-up, Nightbird had been invested a lot more of his time into SSOS than he had before. If he was doing anything else, he'd just feel nothing but hurt and pain and he just... he couldn't. He couldn't deal with it. The reason why they'd broken up weren't particularly bad – Nightbird's duties had kept him busy so he couldn't find the time to talk to Kurt anywhere near as much as he wanted to, but whenever he did find the time, Kurt was working because Nightbird wasn't there to talk to, which resulted in Nightbird working even more. It was a vicious cycle, and eventually, Kurt snapped and came to Lima to see exactly what was happening. At the time, Nightbird was talking to Blond Chameleon about what to do with the Kurt situation. To Kurt, however, it looked as though they were just gossiping and once he'd got Nightbird alone, there was a lot of fighting and crying on both parts. In the end, Kurt broke up with him and returned to New York. Nightbird had tried to speak to Kurt to make it up to him, but he only got one word answers and eventually, all replies stopped together.

Trying to cover up that he was incredibly bothered by the text, he looked up at her disapprovingly.

"I've already told you, Asian Persuasion, this account is only supposed to be used for emergencies" He said, shortly, slipping his phone back into his pocket. Asian Persuasion smiled at him, about to speak again, before Nightbird continued, suspecting that she was going to bring the subject up again "You cannot use your powers of manipulation to coax me into getting back together with my ex! So stop trying!"

"Oh, but I can," She said, smirking a little before her expression becomes serious "But I won't. You need to fix things with him, because the longer you leave it, the more likely it is you've lost him forever."

An awkward silence clung to the air, with all of the other heroes either looking at Nightbird or Asian Persuasion, or looking between the two. Sighing heavily, Asian Persuasion looked around the room as she spoke again.

"Listen, Blaine -"

"Nightbird!" He interjected, "There will be no civilian identities here!"

"Fine, Nightbird," Asian Persuasion said rolling her eyes irritably, "You really need to phone him. Before it's too late."

"He hasn't spoken to me in over a fortnight," Nightbird sighed, "It's already too late."

"Well, none of us have heard anything from him," She said, "He's not even been on Facebook, Twitter, or anything.. He's probably just waiting for you to actually try and speak to -"

"It's not important right now," Nightbird said shakily, "We're moving on. Next on the agenda -"

"Nightbird!" A voice loudly called from outside, and Dottie – Asian Persuasion's old sidekick – came bursting into the meeting room.

"What is it Dottie," Nightbird asked, with a sigh "We're in the middle of a meeting right now."

"There's a message for you. On the large screen in the control room. It's apparently urgent."

Nightbird sighed, and nodded "Go back and put it up on the screen here, we'll continue the meeting once this message is done."

The girl nodded and scrambled out of the room. Watching as she left, Nightbird fell back into his seat, and glanced up at the ceiling. He didn't know why, but his stomach felt as though it was made of iron. It was probably nothing, but he couldn't help but feel there was going to be something sinister about this message.

"What do you think that message will be about then, Nightbird?" Blond Chameleon asked.

"Who knows," Nightbird shrugged "It's probably just an advert, or someone wanting to join us..Something like that, it won't be anything too serious." He said steadily in spite of how he was feeling.

Just then, the large screen lit up, and a young man in a navy blazer with red piping's face stretched across the screen. It was a fairly dark room, but Nightbird was able to notice the dark brown Queen Anne armchair. Nightbird looked at the background and his brow knitted together in concern.

"The Warblers...," He muttered -he recognized that blazer from anywhere -, "What do they want?"

The Human Brain's voice called out from the other end of the room "Who are the Warblers?"

"Sshh," Nightbird raised his hand up to silence her, focusing entirely on the screen in front of him.

"This is a message to Nightbird," The young man on the screen said, "As you may already be aware, I am the new leader of the Warblers"

"Who are the Warblers though..?" The Human Brain asked again in a hushed whisper; Nightbird chose to ignore her – it would take too long to explain who they were and if the Warblers were messaging him? Then it was anything but good.

"So, a few of us were in New York last week.," The new Warbler Leader smirked, and started to stroke what seemed to be a cat sitting on his lap (Blaine couldn't tell – it wasn't in shot of the camera and all he could see was tufts of brown hair at the bottom of the screen). He was speaking slowly and smoothly, as if he was talking about something as trivial as the weather. "And when we were there, we met someone very - how should I say? - interesting. They certainly knew a great deal about you."

Blaine's hands clenched into tight fists as the Warbler's Leader spoke, his teeth worrying his bottom lip. How relaxed the leader seemed unnerved him to no end. And this person he was talking about? Why were they so interesting because they knew about him? Even though Blaine stayed almost solely in Lima, he was pretty well known throughout the whole country – it didn't surprise him that he had a fan there. Unless.. it was more than just a fan..?

His train of thought was broken when he heard a muffled shout coming from the screen, quickly followed by a slapping noise.

"Be quiet, I'll get to you in a minute!" The Warbler Leader snapped at someone off screen. "Now, Nightbird...you're probably wondering 'Why is this so important?' And you'd be right to wonder that. But I'll let you know this – I'm not the type to send you random messages for no reason. This concerns you greatly. There is something I'd like you to do for us...I will tell you later on, in another message, but not now. And there's something I think you should see before you even think about denying this request.. Now, Sebastian, would you mind zooming out so we can show Nightbird our little guest?"

The zooming out of the camera whirred a few times and Blaine realized that what the leader was stroking as he spoke wasn't a cat at all. It was a person sitting at his feet, whose appearance emitted collective gasps from around the table.

"Kurt!?" Blaine practically leapt out of his seat, hands slamming on the desk. No... It couldn't be him...Could it? But there was no denying it... Kurt was sitting at the feet of the Warbler's leader, his hands tied behind his back, and his mouth taped over; his hair was all over the place, his clothes were completely rumpled, and there was a red mark on his cheek from where he was probably slapped before. The sight of it stirred something in Blaine, and he had to bite on his lip, drawing blood in the process to stop himself from breaking down in tears, or start yelling and cursing.

The Warbler's hand trailed down to Kurt's neck, and pushed it back slightly so that Kurt was forced to look at the camera.

"We have what we believe is yours," The Warbler Leader says, "But don't worry...We are always careful with our hostages" He smirked at the screen for a few moments, before the camera zoomed in again, and Kurt's panicked eyes were the last thing Blaine saw before the screen switched off.