A Band Is Not A Sin #Wattys2016

Chapter 17 To Cure a Member of the Band

"That's what the doctor said," Meliodas finished. They were all gathered in a run-down resturant at 3 am that morning. He had told them about what had happened over the course of the last 3 hours. They were all awake but not by much.

"So there's an epidemic going around that's only affecting singers?" Ban asked incredulously chowing down on another slice of the pizza. Diane kept sipping silently from her fountain drink that she assumed was a Coke, but couldn't tell.

"That's what the doctor told all of us. He said that there were a lot of singers that had been brought in the day before after some state wide concert," he shifted in his seat. For some reason he couldn't stop thinking about the sickness that had struck all of the singers.

"What's going to happen if she doesn't wake up?" Diane asked putting her drink down on the table. She was wearing her version of pajamas. It was a sheer shirt over a sports bra and spandex. King almost had a heart attack when they arrived in a public place and not just the gym. Diane assured him that no one would notice or actually care.

"They don't know." The ticking of the old pizza clock seemed to take over the conversation. The low buzz of the dark morning was calm and fragile. Like any mention of the tragedy that had struck them would break it into day. Diane started to sniffle and wiped her nose with a greasy napkin.

"So what do we do now?" She asked misty eyes and all. King shook his head as if they couldn't do anything. So that is how Diane took it. "Well we can't just let her die! Not yet, what about the Battle of the Bands? She worked so hard!" The table went grim, King exchanged a look with Meliodas, then Meliodas to Ban.

"We'll find a cure for her," Meliodas stated confidently. He picked up his beer from the table and took a drink before setting it back down. Diane looked at him hopefully before shaking her head. King smiled at Diane before slipping his hand back into her's.

"What do we do to cure her?" Ban asked licking his lips of the grease from the pizza. Diane's face fell a little but King whispered to her and it must've worked because soon enough she was smiling and laughing. Meliodas flagged down a waiter and ordered another pizza. Diane and King went outside to grab his laptop. But they didn't return for 15 minutes and when they did King had totally forgotten his laptop.

"So let's get down to business," King stated sitting down. Diane suggested looking into diseases that usually hit singers and put them into comas. Ban crushed that idea immediately by saying that each coma was caused by an allergic reaction not some new disease.

"Why don't we start by accessing the records of the sick?" King asked, they responded with dumbfounded looks. "We could ask Gowther if he could hack into the main frame or whatever and we could get the information that way,"

"Do it." Meliodas insisted pushing King's laptop closer to him. Rolling his eyes King logged into Skype and looked for Gowther's username. Ban took this opportunity to look through his contacts.

"Who's this?" He asked pointing to the username GoddessElaine_1995. Diane pushed Ban aside and looked closely at the username. At first she seemed angry but then seemed to calm down.

"Oh, it's just Elaine," she sighed leaning back in her chair. Ban and Meliodas watched King, utterly confused, but he kept typing and scrolling through the list.

"Who's Elaine?" Ban finally asked after a couple moments of silence. King looked over at him nervously and hastily found Gowther's username.

"Okay here we go," he announced as he pressed the video chat button. Ban sat in a grumpy silence waiting until the video chat was over before attacking King with questions. Meliodas moved over to the other side of the table and squished together with the rest of them.

"Hello, this is Gowther," Gowther answered swirling around in his lab chair. He moved so fast around the lab it was a real surprise that he didn't knock anything over. It took a few more seconds before he stopped back in front of the computer again. "Hello friends,"

A chorus of "Hello"s and "How are you?"s followed this. He monotoned his responses and they all chatted almost forgetting the real reason of the call.

"Okay so Gowther we have to ask a favor of you," Diane started watching as Gowther gathered a few things then unceremoniously dumped them into a bowl. Once he turned back around to the computer they all started to explain.

"We hired a new singer named Elizabeth," started Diane.

"And everything was going really well, and we where even going to join a Battle of the Bands," King interrupted causing Gowther to move around again.

"Until she got sick and passed out," Ban explained oh-so-eloquently, this earned a glare from Diane. He shrugged it off as Meliodas explained the rest at a rapid pace.

"Then we found out that a lot of singers were getting sick and so we need you," he pointed at Gowther for emphasis. "To get into the mainframe thingy and get us all of the records for the sick singers," Gowther nodded slowly at this, giving no indication whether or not he would do it. Instead the camera cut out on them. They could hear the clicking of the keyboard and the dragging of a mouse across his desk top.

A few stress filled minutes later a menagerie of documents filled up the screen of the laptop. "That was all I could find on the subject, I hope it will be sufficient," Gowther said in more of an asking tone than in his usual statement voice.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! This will be more than enough thank you so so so much Gowther! You have no idea how much this means to us," Diane said jumping excitedly around, this invited a few stares from the employees of the pizza place.

"I am almost always happy to help you guys," Gowther said, they soon said their goodbyes and signed off of Skype. Each member took a turn examining the documents highlighting what they thought was important and crossing out what didn't seem significant. Soon enough they had a finally list of suspects and let Diane go through and find the culprit. Which she did after only 6 minutes on the laptop.