The Arrow of Time

Gathering

"Daroach, weren't you with Elfilin? Where is he?" Dedede asked.

"When I got back to the hospital yesterday, it seemed like he wanted to stay with Taranza. I decided to leave them alone, but I'll go check on them now." Daroach left the dining room and headed to the elevator. Mere minutes later, he was back. "Bad news, they're gone. Good news, new floor. Floor B."

Rick sighed deeply. "Whatever. If they're okay, they'll show up again later. If they're not, they won't. Let's go to the new floor..." He sauntered out of the room. The others followed silently.

Floor B was noticeably different from all the other floors. While the previous floors had been long hallways with a total of five doors, B was simply one large room. One enormous room. There was a massive fountain in the center of the room, with waterways extending from eight sides. Water was flowing through them at alarmingly fast speeds. As usual, there was also a lounge and bathroom.

Daroach gathered everyone there into the lounge. "Alright, let's figure this out."

"What do you mean by that?" Bandee piped up.

"I think we should go through every disappearance and try to figure out when and why it happened. If we can get that down, we might be able to find the real OSO." Daroach pivoted to face the others with a flourish of his cape. "Starting with Zan... Paralyze?"

Francisca buried her face in her hands. "No."

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"Looks like the place was cleaned up." Taranza groaned as he entered room 3.

"Not completely." Elfilin flew to the corner of the couch. "See? This area and the floor around it is burnt."

"I guess that's one advantage of coming back here. I missed that before."

"C'mon! If we wanna know what happened to Magolor, we need to be able to see everything!" Elfilin grabbed one of Taranza's hands and led him out of the room.

"Were you ever going to explain why you're taking me to floor I?" Taranza asked as they got off the elevator.

"It's been thirty seconds, relax. I'll tell you. It's at the end of the hallway." They went to the door at the end. "Daroach told me about this room. If anything could have what we need, it's here." Elfilin opened the door and scanned the chemical lab. He scanned the interior and then flew over to a small refrigerator with some spray bottles inside. There were a few pairs of goggles on top. Elfilin's eyes shone. "I knew it! It is here!"

"What is?"

"This is luminol testing reagent. You can use it to find old blood. If you spray something that used to be a bloodstain, it'll glow. It doesn't glow very brightly though, so you put on these goggles to see it." He was restlessly zipping this way and that.

Taranza cocked his head. "And why do you know that?"

"Don't worry about it!" Elfilin grabbed a bottle out of the fridge, put on a pair of goggles, and handed another pair to Taranza.

"Well. I guess we're..." Taranza began trembling as he processed what was happening. "Going to look at all the blood that used to be in a person I dearly love." His voice fell. "Sh-should be fun."

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