Everyone in the Galaxy Garrison knew Lance McClain

It was strange, really. It wasn't as if the kid was the top, nor the bottom, of his classes or anything. He wasn't particularly good at flying, barely making the scrape for the second-year fighter class. He wasn't the best looking in the facility, but it wasn't like he was the worst. Sure, he got into trouble sometimes, more so than some of the other students, but still not enough to pick him out of the crowd for it. He didn't sneak in any treats that the students missed, he wasn't very popular or hung out with a large group of friends, nor did he fall into one of the major stereotypes that every high school seemed to have.

Lance McClain was somehow able to stay underneath everyone's radar, yet he was known by everyone.

He had, somehow, managed to worm himself into everyday life at the Garrison, worm himself into everyday life, into their conversations, their subconscious thoughts. They would only smile at his new antics, laugh at his new pick up lines, conversate in small talk with him.

But, the thing with Lance McClain was that he knew everyone and everything, from rumours to actual truth. Nobody knew how, but if you wanted to know when the next surprise quiz for Professor Smith's mechanical engineering class was, or who was dating who and who had beef, or if that rumour about a 15-year-old breaking into Iverson's office was true, then he was your guy.

Even some of the other staff members would go looking for Lance McClain when they wanted to find something out. He was on first name basics with the cleaners due to his roommate, and the security guards liked him enough to turn a blind eye when he snuck in and out of the college. The teachers knew him too, but not for good reasons. He was well known for making trouble in class, not completing the homework in the way that they wanted it to be done. He still got good enough marks, if barely, at a wonder to his classmates, if they cared enough to think about the successes that he had achieved outside of his boasting and flirting.

The point was, Lance McClain was the background character that knows the backstory to everyone in the book, who gave exposition to the reader. He was the face in the crowd that would only have to look at you and smile to know your dirtiest secrets and your deepest darkest fears. He was the plot device that people forgot about until he was relevant to the protagonist again, mainly being used a comedy relief by the author and has a huge potential for something, though nobody never realised when he reached it.

Lance McClain was, well and truly, a well-known nobody within the Galaxy Garrison.

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Until him and his entire team disappeared.

Nobody noticed, not at first anyway. Who would? Him and his mechanic were roommates, so it wasn't like one was there to report the other missing, and their third teammate wasn't the most social of people, and that was putting it lightly, meaning that nobody really knew (or cared) that he too was missing.

It wasn't until people were discussing what had happened the night before, the lockdown that caused all their lessons to be cancelled for the day, that his name was mentioned, with one person asking one of their friends to if they thought that Lance McClain knew anything about the incident last night, as he knew everyone and everything, from rumours to actual truth. They agreed with their friend, and suggested that they asked him when they next saw him, as he always made his presence known to everyone.

It took far too long for them to realise that he had yet to do so.

It started out as a single pair of friends looking for Lance and, consequently, the other two people that made up his simulation team, their curiosity about what had happened the night before mixed in with the teachers' reluctance to explain the lockdown, an hour after breakfast. People started to message people, asking if they had seen the Cuban, and before long, it turned into a campus wide search party, looking for the person who would know about what had happened for all of them to be sent to their rooms and then locked in them.

They began to question the staff on his whereabouts, first the cleaners who had the gift of seeing everyone in the college and going buy unnoticed, then the security guards who were on duty last night but had no knowledge of what had happened to cause the lockdown until the teachers were the only ones who were left to interrogate.

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An hour later, there was an emergency assembly to announce the missing students, and how anyone with any information should come forward.

Unsurprisingly, nobody did.

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Two hours later, a quick search party was lead in the surrounding area.

Unsurprisingly, nobody had found the small shack in the middle of the desert, or the caves filled with the strange lion carvings, at least, not yet.

(They did however see a strange blue lion flying over the desert, and there was now a team of people making sure that none of the videos that the students took ended up online, for security reasons of course.)

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Three hours later, Commander Iverson personally called each of the parents to tell them that their child was missing. He was confused when Gunderson's phone number didn't work, as it just kept coming up with a dead line, causing him to investigate Gunderson's files in further detail.

Unsurprisingly, there were things that didn't match up.

(Iverson did, however, have his suspicions about the misinformation that had been written in the file in his hands, making him want to just say that he rung up the parents and leave it at that.)

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The news stations found out about the incident in time for it to hit the 6 O'clock news.

Three teens go missing at Galaxy Garrison during an emergency lockdown.

Unsurprisingly, there was a major uproar, over the internet as well as the media.

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(Surprisingly, the students at the Galaxy Garrison had a lot to say about well-known nobody called Lance McClain, and the mysterious mask that the kid hid behind.)

A.N. So I've had this on my computer for a while, and I was wondering what you guys thought about it, as I'm not sure if i should continue it or not. If you guys do want more, the please tell me in the comments. I can't read your minds people.

Merry Christmas!