AN: Sorry for making you wait like an insensitive jerk... I actually completely forgot that I hadn't uploaded this bit. Well! Here's some action that I think is about due! Plus, I've made it twice the normal chapter length as a token of my sincerest apologies. Enjoy~

"WHO YA GONNA CALL?"

"Take that thing off this minute!"

"NO WAY!"

You turned the corner to see Alfred emerge from a supply closet, dressed in a familiar tan jumpsuit and dragging something large and heavy with him. Arthur was on his heels.

"You are NOT bringing that with us! It's a bleeding VACUUM CLEANER!"

"HAHAHA! Of course! How else are we going to suck up all the ghosts?"

"THIS ISN'T A BLASTED TELEVISION SHOW, YOU IDIOT!"

"I ain't afraid of no ghost…" You muttered automatically, arriving behind them.

Arthur turned to you. "That's not helping!"

"Um, hey Alfred…" You ignored the Brit and pointed to the staircase at the end of the hallway. "I don't think you can get that thing up all those stairs anyways…"

"Of course I can! I'm the hero! Right, Kiku?"

You turned to see the Japanese student standing quietly behind you. "Ummu…" He stammered, flustered at being brought into the debate.

"Where is Vladimir at?" Arthur ignored Alfred's antics for the moment, looking around for his roommate. "Isn't he coming?"

The five of you had decided to wait until late in the day to begin your mission. Arthur had said that midnight would have been the best, but none of you were too keen on running around the school building in the middle on the night. Especially you and Arthur. Cough

And so you had agreed to meet at the south wing, by the tucked away stairwell that led up to the uppermost floor. Although dinner had long passed, you still had time to chase a few ghosts before curfew.

"There you are, Vladimir!"

"I'm sorry that I'm late," came the Romanian accent from behind you. He must have just come from around the corner. Vlad flashed you a smile as you met his almond-shaped eyes.

"Well!" Arthur clapped his hands together. "That makes five. Is everyone ready?"

"Heck yes! Let's catch some ghosts! WAHOO!"

Arthur sent a glare towards Alfred at the sound of his voice. "You're NOT bringing the vacuum cleaner."

"Come on!"

Arthur pointed crossly at the supply closet. "Put it back!"

Grumbling, Alfred began shoving the contraption back where it belonged, while the rest of you started towards the stairwell.

You smirked at Arthur as he passed. "Well, try not to get us locked into any closets this time, okay?"

His face instantly turned a lovely shade of crimson. He paused on the steps and opened his mouth to retaliate, just as a pair of sharp footsteps sounded from around the left corner.

Uh-oh.

You had already been informed that the top floor was technically off limits to students. Another pair of footsteps was definitely not a good thing, if you were looking to avoid a second detention within the first week of school.

Your fears were confirmed when a figure rounded the corner: a staff member, her heels clicking down the hallway. "Think fast," you whispered frantically as she approached. You were already partway up the stairs, and she had to have seen you by now.

Before you could get an answer, she had already zeroed-in on your group like a bird of prey. "What are you all doing here?" came her voice. "You know that this area is staff only, don't you?"

She stopped in front of us, giving our petrified group a hard once-over with her eyes.

Arthur spoke up immediately. "Ah, yes, well, we're here from the drama department. We were given permission to look through storage for some costumes, you see… er—for the musical I've written! We were hoping to get some practice in during the weekend."

She stared hard at us for a moment, and then broke into a wide smile. "Well, that sounds like a wonderful idea! You've written a musical all by yourself? How remarkable! It's a pleasure to have such talented students in the department!" She turned to you and beamed. "What sort of character will you be playing?"

"Umm…" You froze up. Come, on! Think!

"She's the innocent schoolgirl that gets attacked by monsters! It's totally awesome!" Alfred vented quite convincingly. "She even gets this super cool solo at the end, after she gets saved by the hero—which is me!"

"How wonderful! And what about the rest of you?"

Before anyone had a chance to reply, Alfred began pointing fingers. "He's the grumpy old sorcerer, this one's a vampire, and Kiku over here is a magical singing tree!"

Apparently these were perfectly regular roles. The teacher's smile only widened.

"Oh, my! It sounds like a wonderful play! I'll have to be there for the performance. Good luck finding your costumes, now!"

"Thank you, M'am." Arthur smiled, one eyebrow twitching.

You waited until she was around the corner and out of sight before continuing up the steps.

"So, you're a drama geek now, are you?" you declared

"What was I supposed to say?!" Arthur protested irately, refusing to look you in the eye as he led the way up the staircase. "And I am NOT a grumpy old sorcerer!"

You held back a laugh upon realizing the source of his sudden moodiness. He was probably the closest thing to a grumpy old sorcerer that you had ever come across.

As you followed your group up the stairwell, sneakers pounding on the tall steps, a sort of uneasiness crept into the back of your mind. You were torn between laughter and nervousness, not having any idea what you were about to get yourself into this time. This all seemed so ridiculous, but at the same time very serious. It made your head spin.

Before long, your feet had reached the top step.

Arthur swung open the wooden door, flipping on the light switch. You were almost disappointed upon stepping through the doorway and seeing that the 'attic' was not in actuality an attic. You hadn't exactly been expecting cobwebbed corners and creaking floorboards, but the polished space that surrounded you wasn't much different from the rest of the building. The roof was lower, true, and the windows were narrow, but there weren't any dust-covered relics laying about, or mummified oracles for that matter. It looked like an ordinary storage area.

"This is the main stockroom," Vladimir took a few steps ahead of you, gesturing to the orderly rows of shelves stacked with boxes. Then he pointed to the far side of the room, where you caught a glimpse of another doorway. "Over through that door are other rooms organized by department, and of course the electrical systems."

"You seem pretty familiar with this place," you added, still looking around.

Vladimir turned to you and grinned. "Yes, I've come up here a few times before."

"So, you guys!" Alfred's loud voice tore your attention from Vladimir. "Where are we gonna start searching? I don't see any ghost up here!"

He was right. Apart from the dimness, nothing spooky was going on at all in this room. You ran your hand along the row of neatly stacked boxes, taking a good look around, just in case.

Normal… normal… normal…. You had reached the far side of the room when a subtle gleam caught your eye. Something small was shining softly among the shadows of the corner, beckoning you closer. You started towards it, curiosity at its peak.

"Wait…" You murmured aloud, staring hard at the object as you came closer. "Is that…?" You swiftly crossed the floor and scooped it up into your hand, staring in disbelief.

"What's up?" Alfred asked you, coming to see what you had found. The others were right behind.

"It's this! What's it doing laying on the floor up here?" Confusion leaked into your voice as you held up a silver pocket watch, one that unmistakably belonged to you.

"Hold on a moment… I recognize that watch. Isn't it yours?" Arthur studied the timepiece with an expression between curiosity and suspicion.

You nodded sharply, baffled beyond measure. "How the heck did it get here? I've never even been in this room before!"

"Did it go missing?"

You thought hard for a moment. "I don't exactly remember seeing it for the past few days… but I didn't really give it any thought, I guess. I just thought I'd misplaced it or something, so I never bothered to look."

"Dudes, this is weird!" Alfred exclaimed. "Does that mean… the GHOST stole it?"

There was a moment of silence.

"Well at any rate, if this is the work of whatever has been haunting you, this could be very useful," Arthur spoke up.

You turned to give him a confused glance. "What do you mean?"

He didn't answer your question. Instead, he motioned for you to hand him the watch and then held it aloft by its chain. "Everyone step back a moment."

The four of you obliged immediately as he pulled out something slim and straight from the pocket of his trousers. What was it? A wand?

"Um," you began to mumble, but you were cut off by a flash of green light. You had no choice but to watch, speechless as Arthur began… whatever he was doing. He set the silver object down on the polished wooden floor and started scribbling strange symbols around it with the tip of his wand, muttering words the whole time that you couldn't quite make out or understand. By this point you had backed up quite a distance, wary and in inevitable astonishment. You definitely hadn't been expecting this.

Still, it was fascinating to watch. Arthur finished drawing glowing letters in the floor, and stood up fully, his chanting growing louder and stranger. Oh, great. What's he going to do now?

As if in answer, he swiftly knelt down once more, took his wand, and gave your watch a small tap. The green light instantly faded.

Arthur scooped the object off of the ground and stood, obviously waiting for an awed reaction from his spectators.

"…That was… anticlimactic." You said bluntly, for lack of any other words to describe what you had just witnessed.

"What do you mean anticlimactic? Are you saying it wasn't impressive?" He crossed his arms in annoyance.

"No… just… what the heck did you just do to my watch?"

Arthur sighed. "Have you ever heard of a dowsing pendulum?"

Dowsing? It sounded familiar… "I think so."

"Well, then. I've just made one!" He smiled smugly, dangling the chain in front of you.

Vladimir stepped in. "What he means to say is that he has bewitched your watch to lead us towards whatever it was that stole it."

"Waaiit… How does that work?" Alfred stared at the silver thing incredulously. "It's just a watch!"

"The spirit came in contact with it recently, yes?" Vladimir explained, "So he is using the trace of essence it left behind on the watch to track the thing itself. Look closely."

You did. It was quivering slightly, you realized. No, wait. Now it was swinging, just barely, all on its own. You thought you must be mistaken, but as Arthur took a few steps to the left, it looked as if it began wavering even more.

"So it will now swing harder in the direction of the spirit?" Kiku spoke up.

"Or whatever it is…" you muttered. You were still incredibly bothered by the discovery of your watch. Why would something take it… and then just drop it on the floor? There were so many things that just didn't make sense to you…

"Yes," Arthur announced matter-of-factly, in response to Kiku. "This should be enough to point us exactly to where it is."

"WOAH! That's so cool!" Alfred shouted enthusiastically.

Arthur held the watch up to eye-level, watching it sway slowly. After a moment, he pointed towards the doorway. "This way. Come on."

Your group started through the door and into a narrow hallway. There were some doors on either side, which you guessed led to different storage areas. You followed the pendulum further and further, the tension beginning to build.

Your pace was checked as you reached a division in the hallway. Arthur held the dangling watch up, determined that it pointed towards the right, and waved everyone around the corner.

You watched the silver pendulum rise and fall ever so slightly as you walked behind him. A thought suddenly formed in your mind. "Hey, Arthur… before you gave me the watch back… did you do anything to it?"

He raised a bushy eyebrow, taking his gaze off the swinging timepiece. "What? Are you suggesting…"

"No, well—maybe, but… just tell me! Did anything happen to it from the time you found it to the point where you gave it back?"

"No! Of course not! I would remember for sure." He looked back to the object swaying before him.

"Hmm…" Your footsteps echoed softly on the tiled floor. This didn't help the frenzy of thoughts and questions swirling around in your head.

But you didn't have time to try and organize them. You heard a sudden exclamation from Arthur and snapped your head in his direction, as he stopped flat and lifted the watch higher. You gave a small gasp as you saw it swinging madly from side to side, like a tetherball on steroids.

"What does THAT mean?" you exclaimed. Arthur's head turned, and you saw that he was staring at a door on the right side of the hallway, exactly across from you.

"Oh…" You trailed off, a prickling sensation crawling up the back of your neck.

"Well," Arthur announced, looking up at everyone. "Who would like to go first?"

Everyone turned to the door, which stood there silent and foreboding. There weren't any volunteers.

"I propose we all go in at once," Kiku stated. "Unless you would like to lead, Alfred."

"Umm, that's okay! You guys can go in there without me! Heheh!" Alfred pulled at his collar with a nervous chuckle. You swore that his voice was at least an octave higher than usual.

"Oh, no you don't! You're the hero, remember?" you prodded. "Come on, let's get this over with." You swallowed your creeping anxiety and placed your hand on the door knob. Arthur and Vlad joined you. "Ready?"

Three… two… one…

You tightened your fist and turned the knob as the others swung the door open with a loud slam.

"Someone get the lights!"

"Where are they?"

"Hold on!"

An electric bulb flickered to life above your head, bathing in light the room you had stumbled into. You looked around wildly. All you could see were racks upon racks of clothing filling the space: dresses, suits, armor, kimonos… fabric was everywhere.

But there was no sign of a ghost.

The five of you slowly inched your way deeper inside. Vladimir closed the door softly.

You glanced at Arthur, who was holding your watch up. "It's not working," he declared in annoyance at the motionless pendulum. Despite its fit only seconds ago, the watch was as still as before he had bewitched it.

"Well!" Alfred exclaimed nervously. "That wasn't so scary!"

"I don't understand…" You cast a gaze around the room. "Wasn't it just here? Where did it go?"

"I'm not sure," Arthur muttered. "This is all very strange…"

You took a few uneasy paces forward, stopping in front of a rack of civil war uniform replicas. It couldn't have just disappeared… could it?

You glanced back at Arthur in hopes that he would lend some of his expertise, but he appeared to be preoccupied. He was staring at the watch, turning it over and over in his hands. What was he looking for?

"I don't see anything unusual in this room," Kiku summarized, walking slowly through the aisles of costuming.

Something was wrong. You didn't know what. But something lurked at the edge of your consciousness, fraying slightly at your nerves as you tried to catch it by the roots. What was it?

"Laurel," Arthur's voice called your attention suddenly. He was still staring at the watch, but now seemed almost frozen. "I… I may have realized something…"

"What is it?"

He brought his green eyes up to meet your gaze, an unreadable expression across his face.

"This may be my fault…"

Then the lights went out.

So...things have finally begun to develop here...
Any new theories? Anyone have a guess as to what is going on, hmm? I've given you some hints~
Let me know in the reviews!