A New Age, A New Team
Chapter 49: Waiting Game

The car pulled up in front of the lavish X² mansion, where Jamal (Cannon) was waiting outside with stretchers for the injured members. His heart was racing within his chest out of anticipation for what was to come out of the car. He had no idea what to expect, or how he was going to fix it, which terrified him. He had researched everything Sean had told him and found nothing even close to what was described.

The back doors of the car opened up and slowly people began to bring out the injured people covered in dark purple circles. Grace and Hiro carefully stepped out of the car with Jazmine in their arms, and waited until Jamal wheeled a stretcher over to them. They softly placed her on top of it, and Jamal's brown eyes went wide at the sight of the dark purple circles, I've never seen anything like this… "Take her to the medical area. I'll be down in a minute." He accidentally barked the order to Grace.

Hiro climbed back into the car to help Gabe carry out Seth to the awaiting stretcher. Once again, Seth was also covered in the dark purple circles and shivering even though his skin was burning to the touch. "Gabe follow Grace with him."

Everything seemed to be playing out in slow motion to everyone, but the truth was everyone was hushing to try to save them. It was all surreal and felt like any minute now they would wake up and it would all have just been a terrible dream.

Hiro and climbed back into the car as Sean was carefully lifting Noah from the bench. Without saying a word, Hiro got on the other side and picked him up. Sam quietly listened as they carried him off the car, and then she watched through the side mirror as they placed him on a stretcher. She watched as more dark circles formed on his body as Sean wheeled him towards the medical lab.

Hecate grunted as she picked up the stranger in black and carried him off the car and placed him on a stretcher.

"Who is this?" Jamal asked as he looked over the man.

"I don't know," she shrugged as she wiped her platinum blonde hair from her face, "I found him at the warehouse."

"I'll take him to the medical center," Jamal nodded as he turned the stretcher to head back to the house, but the stranger's hand wrapped around Hecate's wrist, which made Jamal stop.

Hecate's dark blue eyes looked down at his hand and then over at him in surprise. "My name is Arcane… And I'm so sorry," He whispered before his hand slipped from his wrist and fell lip against the stretcher.

Jamal was at first in shock before he realized what had happened. He quickly ran with the stretcher towards the medical lab to tend to Arcane, while Hecate stood there staring into the house where Jamal had disappeared into. Hecate touched her wrist where Arcane's hand had been and felt the cold still against her wrist; it was the first time that he had felt cold since she had been tending to him.

Tonya sat in the car still with Dawn's face still buried in her lap as the young member held onto Saria's memory book for dear life. Sean climbed back into the car and looked down at Tonya and Dawn with a sad look on his face. Without saying a word, he carefully scooped her up into his arms and carried her out of the car with Tonya walking behind him.

Quietly Sean carried Dawn into the mansion with Tonya, Hecate and Hiro walking behind him. When they reached the door, Hiro turned around to see where Sam was but she was nowhere in sight; the only thing to be seen was the passenger door where she had been sitting left wide open. He lowered his head before turning around slowly to walk into the mansion.

Sean walked into the medical area after putting Dawn in her room. He nodded to Tonya, Hecate, Grace, Gabe and Hiro who were waiting there to for Jamal to come out and tell them any form of news.

The office door slowly opened as Jamal stepped out into the waiting area, where everyone was sitting, with his head hung low. He looked up at everyone and sighed as he saw the hopeful looks on their faces. "The good news is that none of you are infect with being in contact with the others…"

"And the bad?" Hiro asked quietly.

"The bad news is I don't know what the virus is, so I can't treat it." An eerie silence filled the waiting room as a couple people exchanged looks with one another, but everyone felt helplessly lost. "I might be able to find a cure in a couple days - if we have that long - but for now you can't seem… The only thing we can do now is let it run it's course." Jamal nodded before quietly slipping back behind the office door.

"So what now?" Tonya asked to break the silence.

"We go about our daily lives until told otherwise," Sean shrugged.

"Half our team is down and we're supposed to go about our daily lives?!" Tonya asked in surprise of Sean's comment.

"Do you have any better ideas?"

Tonya sighed in defeat, "No."

"Then until anyone does, that's the plan." Sean nodded before slowly turning and walking out of the medical area.

Jamal quietly walked back into the dimmed medical area where he had the infected members of the team setup side by side. They all had oxygen masks over their faces in order to force them to breath, since they all had stopped by the time Jamal got them to the medical lab. I.V.s were inserted into their hands to provide some sort of nutrients in their weakened bodies.

Jamal's brown eyes looked over each patient and sighed, If I don't find a cure tonight they'll all be dead by morning… He thought quietly. This was his family and he was going to be the last person to see them die.

Hours passed in the day, but to everyone in the mansion it felt as though days had passed. No one could sleep that night, nor did anyone want to because every time they closed their eyes they saw one of their members fall, or they saw them die. It hurt too much to sleep, but it hurt too much to wait.

Jamal sat in front of his large computer feverishly typing away to find anything that could keep his team alive even if for a little longer, but there was nothing. No information of dark purple circles with fever sweats; Nothing including short breathes or no breathes at all. He had been working for hours and had kept his notepad next to him at all times to write down any useful information, but the pad was still blank. There was literally nothing.

"You won't find anything," a thick Scottish voice said calmly from behind Jamal and across the room.

Jamal quickly turned around and saw Lucas sitting in a chair near the infected patients. "How did you get in here?"

"I know this place like the back of my hand," he smirked, "but don't worry, your secrets are safe with me."

Jamal slowly stood up and walked towards Lucas, "What do you want?"

"To help," he shrugged nonchalantly. "I see that three of your members and stranger was infected… Well one of our member was infected also."

"Who?"

"Natalie, or as you know her as Miracle."

"How could she have been infected? Her power is to control diseases."

"This is something our little girl couldn't control."

"So you want to help." Jamal raised a curious eyebrow at him before looking over at his patients, "What do you know about medicine?"

"I know nothing about medicine."

"Then how are you going to help?"

"I have my ways."

"Let me guess, you want to work on finding a cure so you can cure Miracle, right?"

"Wrong. I want to help to insure her happiness."

Her? Jamal looked confused. "What do you mean? Who is 'her'?"

"It doesn't matter her name. In due time you'll see why I'm helping you," He said calmly as he spoke in riddles.

"So how are you going to help?"

Lucas carefully fished inside of his long trench coat and pulled out a carefully folded handkerchief. "This is how," he said as he very carefully unfolded the handkerchief in front of Jamal.

Jamal's heart was raising as he waited patiently for Lucas to unveil what he was hiding. Lucas finally finished unwrapping the handkerchief and in the middle of it was four tiny red vials. "What is it?" Jamal asked as he look at the tiny tubes.

Lucas carefully lifted one of the vials up to hold it in between the two of them, "It's blood."

"Blood? A blood transfusion what cure them, and that's definitely not enough for four people."

"No, no, no. Listen to me for a minute brainy." Lucas rolled his brown eyes at Jamal and then took a deep breath. "Chaos harvest blood, but not any; Miracle's blood. Her blood can cure and kill so it's the perfect weapon. The is a vile of untainted, before the virus blood, cure blood." Jamal mouth fell slightly open as he listened, "In theory, if you give a little of this blood to each person, her blood will absorb the virus and in theory, cure them."

Jamal let out a gasp of relief before looking at Lucas, "But how is Miracle doing since she was infected?"

"She's fighting and it's a hard fight, but she's getting there. The good news for your team is that Miracle can never use this virus back on anyone unless she was willing to kill herself."

Jamal nodded his head slowly, "Thank you." He whispered.

Lucas rewrapped the handkerchief up and held it out to Jamal and smirked, "I'm not doing this for anyone but her."

Jamal carefully took the handkerchief in his hands and watched as Lucas quietly left the medical area. He stood there in the middle of the laboratory in silence as the conversation between him and Lucas played over in his head, before he looked down at the handkerchief in his hand. Right.

He quietly walked over to his work station where he attached a tiny rubber tube to the top of the vials, and then attached a needle to the other end of the rubber tube. He placed the four vials on a tray and walked over to each person. He carefully struck the needle in the left front shoulder where their major artery was and clipped it to hang upside down above their heads. Now all that was left, was to wait.