The Arrow of Time

Exploration

Meta Knight began the discussion. "I was eating on the deck of the Halberd when-"

Magolor raised his hand. "What were you eating?"

"Shut the fuck up. I was eating when Sailor Dee showed up and explained that some of the crew had gone missing. I ran to the elevator as fast as I could, but while I was riding it, it stopped and I got hit with a smoke grenade. This happened at nine in the evening."

Dedede took his gaze off of him. "Checks out. Before I got grabbed, I called you over and over again and none of your crew had seen you since before nine. ...Wait a minute, was this at nine on the dot?"

"Pretty much. Why?"

You could almost hear the lightbulb go off in Taranza's head. "I got kidnapped at exactly eleven! I had just finished talking to Magolor and was going to bed when the room got flooded with this white dust and I got knocked out."

Bandee looked around. "Two in the morning for me. Did everyone else get grabbed at an exact hour?" A wave of nods swept across the room. The only ones who weren't nodding were Kirby, Francisca, Flamberge, and Marx.

"Marx, you're a part of that as well. Seven in the morning, I saw it happen." Magolor casually waved in Marx's direction.

Kine shifted and almost broke the chair the water mech was sitting on. "There were witnesses to some of these?"

Zan Partizanne put her hands on the table. "I don't know about that, but Francisca and Flamberge got kidnapped at the same time as me. Three AM."

Everyone went over what time it was when they were kidnapped, and they deduced that, despite no one speaking up at all about it, that Kirby had probably gotten grabbed at four in the morning. They decided that they'd spend the rest of the day investigating the locations more carefully. The meeting broke, and the twenty of them split for the time being.

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Marx rolled into the white room. "How did you get here so much faster than I did? We left the big room at the same time."

"I move at lightning speed. Why are you here?" Zan Partizanne didn't seem particularly pleased with the presence of Marx.

"I thought this room was really weird! I mean, why would they ever make something like this? There are just random walls in here that you can't see because everything is exactly the same. Whoever made this place either doesn't care about practicality at all, or they're just completely insane."

She moved around and furrowed her brow at the strange obstructions that she would not be able to see were it not for Marx and the door. "The sad clown can make some good points." They searched the room in silence.

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The couch in lounge H had a rather heavy load to bear. "Hmm. It's definitely very well-made. A lot of this stuff is incredibly advanced. I wonder where they got it." Susie examined Kine's mechanized fish tank.

"I think I've heard you're good with machines. Do you know where anyone might have gotten the materials for this?"

She paused for a moment. "No. I have no idea." After looking over the build some more, they set to searching the lounge for any clues.

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