It felt like someone had dropped a flash bomb right into the middle of them. Like the world froze. Percy couldn't make sense of it.

Secret was gripping Forge's arm in a death grip, though Forge didn't seem to notice. Luke was looking sick, like he was fighting not to throw up the Cherrio's that he had for breakfast. Halo was white with shock, his stethoscope hanging limply around his neck. Revenge was digging his nails into his hands, muttering curses rapidly under his breath. Grapevine was shaking so hard he fell over.

Omega was the only one who had at least tried to contain his emotions. But even Percy could see his body had stiffened his white knuckles gripping his sword hilt like he was made of stone.

"Guys...?" Percy said warily.

The sound of his voice snapped them back to the present.

Omega's shook his head, as if clearing it. "Halo, we need to get her up to the infirmary. Now! Forge, I want you on our computers search everywhere for Archangel. Secret go with him, I will be right there." They all nodded. Halo took Huntress from Hero carrying her bridal style. Percy was pretty sure, that if she woke up by some miracle, she wouldn't be too happy with him.

"Revenge, Hero, I want you two running through downtown, make sure this stays under wrap. Check every person, make sure we don't have a carrier walking through town. Savoir, Grapevine, you take the other half of the city. Check in every five minutes. I want updates, not chaos. No pun intended."

Omega waved his hand a cloud of blue smoke appearing and disappearing leaving only a small black item that likeness of a Bluetooth. He tossed it to Percy, "We will finish that fight." Omega promised.

This must have been the thing that Halo was talking about. The Elite line. Percy hooked the small black item around his ear, feeling it brush against the side of his hood.

"Everyone get moving." Omega ordered, "Work as a team. No Heroics!"

Omega swished his cloak and he turned out the door. The Elite reacted with renewed purpose. Halo practically ran out the door after him. Forge pulled a small device out of nowhere and set it on the floor. It worked and clicked before lighting up in a purple- blue glow. A rimmed portal doorway swirled into existence. Percy guessed it lead to wherever the computers were.

Forge motioned to Secret, who stiffly walked through, Forge followed after a one handed, good luck wave back at them.

The contraption clicked off and then it too disappeared out of existence.

"Why do I get the feeling that Omega's last command was ordered at you?" Luke said looking pointedly at Percy. He felt his face flush slightly and shrugged his shoulders.

"Come on, Revenge." Hero held a hand out to Revenge, "I'll fly us."

Percy watched as Revenge snagged Hero's hand and they shot into the sky. He would've felt better if he had been paired with Luke. A lot better. Percy wondered if Omega did that on purpose.

Grapevine did not look okay. He was shaking still, almost like he was going to need Doctor Halo next.

"You okay?" Percy asked, concerned.

Grapevine shook his head, "Not this again." He muttered, "Please not this."

"Grapevine?" Percy said a little louder.

The other boy tugged on his hood brim, pulling it down farther. Percy guessed it was a substitute for running a hand through his hair. He turned woefully towards Percy.

"Savoir," he said, "We can't let this spread."

"We won't." Percy assured him.

"No," Grapevine grabbed his shoulders shaking Percy, "We. Cannot. Let. This. Spread."

"I just said that."

Grapevine let go of his shoulders. "You don't understand." Grapevine turned away and sprinted towards the city.

What? Percy couldn't figure out what he meant. The other chaos solider seemed to be on the verge of panic. And didn't he say that he had this disease? This Dimetrion Disease?

"Grapevine!" Percy called after him, stretching his legs after the fleeing figure. Percy didn't want to imagine if he lost Grapevine in the city. He'd not only be extremely lost, but looking more like an idiot with every step. His first mission (if it classified as a mission for Percy, which he debated it did), would be a complete embarrassment.

"Grapevine!" Percy yelled again, he caught up to the boy glancing around at the people bustling about. "What are we even looking for? Why do you think I don't understand?"

Grapevine was shaking, but it wasn't as visible as before. He turned and looked at Percy, and even though Percy couldn't really see his face he could feel the desperate miserable sadness radiating off him.

"This isn't a normal disease." He said, quietly like it was poison just to talk out loud.

"I got that much."

"No, this is way worse than a normal disease. Way worse." Grapevine motioned Percy closer, "You should know normal diseases don't effect the Elite. It comes with being dead. So a couple years ago, a huge pandemic broke out on the planet Dimetrion. It was horrible. It spread through contact, hand holding, hugs, brush bys, anything skin on skin contact. The entire planet was sick with in days.

"Chaos sent the Elite, who back then was under the command of a guy named Havoc, to search for any survivors, or an origin point. Havoc warned us...He said not to take off our gloves. I swear I listened. I got paired up with Quiver, to find the origin."

Percy got a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"We found it. Oh gods, Savoir, we found it. A lab." Grapevine looked down, "a lab, Someone was trying to create a disease. It wasn't until later that we realized it was meant for us.

"I touched a counter." Grapevine whispered, "and then my face. It happened within minutes. Minutes."

He was silent. Percy felt cold and alone, even though the throngs of citizens were walking and laughing around them in the warm summer air.

"You said survivors." Percy said, in a low voice, "what happened to them?"

"There were none."

Percy felt like he'd been ripped out of his body, a burning sensation. "What?"

Grapevine voice was hollow, broken. Completely different from the guy that morning who was fighting over charred eggs. He wasn't even the same guy from ten minutes ago who'd been laughing excessively at Hero's jokes.

"The disease targets every function in the body and shuts it down. It starts with the freezing sensation, which causes uncontrollable shaking, then it closes off muscle control. Without Huntress's upgraded survival power, she wouldn't have even made it to the street. Then it hijacks your brain." Grapevine pressed his lips together in a painful attempt to stop a sob. "And after ten days, you fade."

Percy didn't know what to say. Or do. Was he saying Huntress was going to fade? That any one of the citizens around him could get this virus and it could kill them all off in a matter of days? Could that even happen?

"Excuse me, custodēs," at that moment a citizen of the town, who's purple skin had an orange tint to it, interrupted their conversion, "could you point me to the nearest forum?"

Percy blinked at him, and glanced at Grapevine, "Uhhh, sorry, I'm just as new here. Grapevine?"

The other cloaked figure tugged on his hood, and pointed, "Down that road, to the left. There should be a huge arch deliberating the marketplace."

The man bowed, which was weird for Percy to say the least, "Gratias tibi!" He hurried away following Grapevine directions.

"Latin tourist," Grapevine shook his head sadly, "Genesis is such a nice planet this time of year." He turned away before Percy could ask what he meant.

Grapevine lead the way through the people who were talking and walking and some dancing, reminding Percy they were on a mission. None of these people looked sick. They looked perfectly healthy and happy.

Which was opposite of how both Huntress and probably Bianca right now. The more Percy looked around, the more worried about his friend he got. Archangel was pretty poplar, but with this virus suddenly appearing, he couldn't help but wonder if it was a decoy to distract them. Who would kidnap a chaos solider anyway? Everyone seemed to be well liked, even Revenge.

"What do we do even if we find someone sick?" Percy asked in a low voice, "We just give them a cure or whatever?"

Grapevine back went rigid as he stiffened and stopped suddenly.

"What?" Percy asked.

He turned slowly to look at Percy, "Savoir, there is no cure."

"But I thought you said you had it?"

"I did." Grapevine looked away again, "I'm not entirely cured."

"How-?"

"Quiver." He choked slightly, on something that sounded like guilt, "Quiver helped me.

"She use to go on solo dangerous missions every other week. She'd do special assignments for Chaos. Most of the time there was a 10% chance she'd come back alive, if at all. It's stupid the time she actually died it was an easy small set up that shouldn't have happened.

"She'd get rewards every single time. Archangel said she had dozens, a keep safe of rewards for emergencies. I never believed her.

"Until that day when I caught the virus and fell over. Everything started to warp around me. I was going to die. I knew I was going to die. It felt like everything was going numb. Then Zoë came in, her cheeks red, her hood down because no one else was around, panting because she'd just run a long distance. In her hands was a reward, orange and golden, rounded in a shape that resembled one of the planet lights.

"She used it to cure me, but it didn't work entirely. It made me healthy again, but I can't touch anyone. Not without gloves on." He curled his hands into fists pressing them to his forehead, his black gloves looking all the more threatening. "If I touch someone, accidentally, No matter how small, I could start a pandemic. One that's worse than this."

Percy stared at him. Grapevine shook his head.

The other Chaos solider laughed, but it was completely humorless. "You wanna know the worse part?"

Percy did not think anything could really be worse. He wanted to shake his head no, but he also felt like he needed to hear this. He was so mad he could've slapped himself. Why did he half to bring it up? Why did he say anything at all?

Grapevine watched the crowd around them move, all blissfully unaware that they could all be in serious danger. "I'm never going to have my first kiss." He mumbled, "I'm never going to be able to tell Huntress...to tell her I like her. There's no cure. There's nothing I can do..."

He sounded like he should've been crying but all his tears had been cried out.

"What about Zoë's stash?" Percy asked, "You said she went on a lot of missions shouldn't she have a lot of rewards left over?" He winced internally at how shallow that sounded. Grapevine waved him off like he already thought of that, which he probably had.

"Lost, she wouldn't tell anyone where she hid them." Grapevine turned, "Come on, everyone here is healthy, We better check in and keep going."

Percy didn't want to ask how he knew. Maybe it was just intuition. But Percy followed Grapevine to the side, out of the way. He didn't even know how Grapevine could possible think about being calm, much less actually act it. It was like everything was falling apart with the girl Grapevine liked looking at him and handing him a huge silver platter with his soul on it, basically saying "You suck, enjoy dying all over again!"

Percy defiantly would not have been calm.

Grapevine tapped his ear mining for Percy to mimic him. Immediately Percy could hear the static of other voices. Loud and Clear almost as if they were standing right next to him.

"-Eep working on it. We need a report in from Savoir and Grapevine so we know where we stand." Percy recognized Omega's commanding voice on the line. He hadn't noticed before but know he could pinpoint a slight accent in the higher officer's voice.

"Omega, Grapevine and Savoir reporting." Percy glanced at his partner who was twisting his finger distantly causing grapevines to curl up from the ground. He hadn't realized but the entire way they walked small little vines had broke the surface responding to their master's agitated mood.

"Finally! Did you two skip planets or something? Because our definitions of Five minutes check in are obviously different." Percy had no trouble scowling at the sound of Revenge's voice.

Omega seemed to be along the same thoughts, "Revenge, that's out of line. Get back to your search."

Revenge grumbled, but he didn't say anything again.

"So far everything from the arena to Salin Street is healthy." Grapevine reported his voice void of emotion, "Omega, I don't think there's a carrier. Here or otherwise. Besides Huntress was copying pictures, that would be on the completely other side of town."

"We can't be too sure."

"But-"

"Omega, this is useless." Another voice cut off their conversion, adding with a banging and a couple swears.

"Forge!" Secret scolded, though he didn't seem to pay her any mind.

"Omega, the system's not big enough." Forge swore again.

"What are you saying?" Grapevine asked

"There's too much space on this stupid planet. Whatever happened, my cameras aren't catching it. I'm not even picking up Angel's bio-signature! I've tried everything. Someone's actually blocking all of my cameras."

"Are you saying this was sabotage?"

"I'm saying it was certainly planned, in some corner of the planet where I can't see. There's only a number of blind spots in my system. Someone had to know about them."

The line was silent. Then:

"Someone...inside?" Secret said.

Percy thought Forge nodded, but he could see them so he didn't know.

"I can barely trace her." Forge said, "It'll take forever, though. I'd have to recalibrate Ali the cameras in search of Archangel signature then do a frame by frame assessment of the time zone on all the shots close to the printing shop-"

"No." Luke's voice suddenly stopped him, "Just anything near Brockside Lane."

"Why would I do that? It's no where close to-"

"How many people do you know want pictures of the Stoll brothers?" Luke said a quiet but strong voice, "because their pictures are all over the ground here. They're practically famous."

Percy felt his stomach drop. He was almost positive everyone was suddenly feeling the same way.

"It'll still take forever." Forge said.

"Well then you better start now." Omega said.

Forge sighed worriedly, "if there was a way I could just see everything, and could zoom in and out, that would be perfect."

"What if there was?" Percy surprised himself with speaking. He was pretty sure he got everyone's attention with that one statement. Even Grapevine next to him stopped twirling the vines to look at him with worried curiosity.

"What do you mean, Savoir?"

What did he mean? Percy bit his lip thinking. It was a long shot. Probably wouldn't even work. But Bianca's life was almost certainly on the line. Surely he could risk looking like an idiot for that, right?

"I've got an idea, can I go explore it?" He said, mainly towards Omega.

The commander hesitated. "Grapevine, You said you don't think there is a carrier?"

"Yes Sir."

"Then you better hope you're, right. Have Savoir follow his hunch. If you get anything, anything at all, I want to know it." Omega let the comment hang in the air somewhat similar to a threat, and a solemn click followed like he was signing off.

Grapevine brought his hand down from his ear, slowly looking at Percy who followed his lead.

"What's your idea?"

"You know those floating planet lights?" Percy asked rhetorically.

Grapevine rolled his head to the side, "Uh, yeah?"

"There's one for every planet, right? So where is the one for this planet?"