The Arrow of Time

Disarmed

Taranza took hold of his hand and hauled himself back up, still off balance. "H-"

Magolor reached around him to steady him. "You don't need to say anything, I understand."

"I don't! How are you here? Is the axe wound okay?"

"I'll live. Look, Ranz, I'd love nothing more than to talk to you, but clearly..." He indicated the OSO. "There's something important happening right now."

Taranza shook his head and looked down at them. "Why did you stop me from taking this off?"

"It's almost definitely a trap. I saw it before. In room 3... I tried to pull the cloth off and it set off a bomb. That's why I got so badly hurt."

"Then... what do we do? This is either a person or a bomb, and the only way to find out is by doing the thing that will make it explode if it's a bomb?" Taranza was going in circles around the cloth, examining it from all angles.

Magolor thought it over for a second. "How about this? The bomb should only trigger if we pull the cloth off, so how about we just put whatever this is in jail, and if it gets up and starts moving around, we have it?"

"But what if we go to get the keys and it ends up being a person and leaves while we're gone?"

"I'll stay behind. You get the keys and be back here."

"Aren't you worried about being left alone with this?"

Magolor reached down and picked up the sleep dart gun at their side. "I will be fine. I-I hope."

Taranza brushed one of his thumbs on Magolor's empty hand. "Be careful. Please." He made his way to the elevator.

Dedede, Dedede, where would he be... bebe. Snickering at his own joke, Taranza pushed the I button. After getting off the elevator, he entered the first room on his right. The art room was empty, as usual. Looking at it reminded him of something from long ago.

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"Morning, Taranza! How did the... what were you doing again?" Magolor was darting around the Lor's interior, building some structure that Taranza couldn't quite identify.

Taranza hung his head. "It doesn't matter. Nothing's working."

He stopped for a moment. "Hey, it can't be that bad, can it? I mean, if you've known her for as long as you say you have, there's no way she'd just be switching on a dime like this, right?"

"That's what has me so confused! I don't know why this is happening, and nothing I try to do works!" His eyes were welling up.

Magolor turned around and saw this, and promptly went to the bathroom and came back with a towel. "Here." He threw it at Taranza.

"Hey, what was that for?"

"I just heard that people need towels when they cry, was that wrong?"

Taranza buried his face in it. "Thank you."

Magolor's eye was caught by Taranza's gloves. "Do you have another set of those?"

"No, why?"

He pointed to the hand he was holding the top of the towel with. "Then how did that turn green?"

Taranza lowered the towel and examined his gloves. "Oh... this would be from last night. Her Majesty wanted me to paint her a portrait, and I was going to get electrocuted if it wasn't perfect, so it took me about fourteen hours." He started shaking. "I still ended up getting zapped, though..."