Kipo paused, staring at all the expectant faces turned towards her. For the first time, it made her consider, or reconsider, rather, her place in all this. What she meant to them. In her mind, they were all equal, despite the overwhelming guilt and responsibility weighing on her shoulders. They were all friends, and while Kipo would do anything to keep them all out of danger, she trusted them. It was mostly herself that she didn't trust.

But perhaps, looking at everyone gathered around the table, Kipo had to reconsider.

Was she the leader? Kipo shuddered inwardly at the thought. She hated the idea of it, the responsibility and power it inherently brought. But... they did need a leader. And Kipo was the one with a plan, technically, so, obviously, it would fall to her.

Kipo gulped. It wasn't like this with Wolf, Benson and Dave. Or, she reflected, maybe it was? Kipo did make a lot of decisions, but... no, they were an entire team there. Kipo was really turned into a leader when they found her burrow, and when they started their fight with Emilia.

...Kipo had never considered that before, but other than a couple casualties, she hadn't had to deal with the consequences. Not like this. The people that got hurt, the people that died, it was never like this.

Kipo's mind mentally rejected the title of leader, but with a sinking feeling, she realized she might not have a choice. Kipo wondered if she ever did.

Shaking her head, Kipo forced it out of her mind for now, and focused on the task in front of her, and her friends waiting both eagerly and wearily of what she was going to tell them.

Kipo felt she already knew what they were about to say, and she was proud of them, all of them, for that decision... but she had to give them a way out, too. It'd be cruel not to.

"...We have two options," Kipo finally started, a little awkwardly. "For one, I found a way out of this world, or a couple ways, actually. I'm not actually sure where we'll go, but wherever it is, it can't be worse then here. Maybe we'll even go home-."

"You found a way out?!" Mabel asked, her eyes wide. "How?"

"What are we even waiting for?!" Kai cried. "Let's get out, as soon as possible!"

"You seem... reluctant to tell us," Tulip noted. Her shoulders suddenly slumped. "It's something horrible, isn't it?"

Kipo blinked. "What? No! That isn't it. There's something else. Like I said, we have two options. We can either leave... or we can stay, and fight this world."

Coraline tilted her head. "Why would we do that?"

"We need to," Kipo announced. "Because if we leave, more children will be transported to this world, and then killed to feed this world. We might get to go home safe and sound, but could we really do that, knowing that group after group of kids just like us are being sacrificed this way?"

Kai winced. "Well, when you say it like that..."

Kipo nodded. "We had an advantage here, as did the group before us. Norman gave us the key to the truth of this world, and we couldn't have gotten this far without him. But the next group might not be so lucky."

"So what do we do?" Luz asked, hitting her fist into her palm. Her eyes were narrowed and determined. She was already convinced, and raring to go. "We fight the world? The whole world?"

"Do we kill it?" Mabel asked enthusiastically. Kipo gave her a bewildered look, unsure if she was joking or not.

"No," Kipo said firmly, just in case she wasn't.

"Why not?" Tulip asked, her brow furrowed. "Actually, that's a stupid question. There's no way to fight a whole world..."

Kipo shook her head quickly. Did they all forget? So quickly? Well, to be fair, so did she, and she had to be reminded by Bipo about the truth of this world. "No, that isn't the reason."

"Then why not?" Coraline asked her. "This world is fictional, isn't it?"

"Because there's people here," Kipo told them, her voice firm. She wanted discussion, but not argument, especially not on this. "People that aren't like Hurricane or Oce-Six, or Arlen. People like the shopkeeper I was talking to before. People like the ones you met while collecting the flowers, and even before that."

As she spoke, Kipo could see everyone's eyes widening in realization. They were already starting to see her point, but Kipo wasn't done.

"Now, I know some people in this world aren't the... nicest," Kipo told them. "But even with the good ones, they deserve this world, as fake and twisted from the original as it is. To us, it may be fictional and warped, but for the others living here, this is their home. This is a real world to them."

"Okay..." Coraline said, frowning, and Kipo suddenly remembered that Coraline hadn't exactly had the experience the rest of them did in this world. Sure, she met a lot of people on the journey to find the flowers, but not like everyone else. Kipo wasn't sure exactly what entailed in her stay in the castle, but based on the little bit Kipo saw... she could guess that Coraline did not meet many friends.

Luckily, though, Coraline didn't speak up to argue. "Fine. We want to save the world, or whatever. But how? We can't fight the world, and-."

"I never said that," Kipo interrupted. "I just said we could destroy, or kill it. Remember the director's story, and the man who made all this happen? It never said for sure, but I think the story implied that the person was still around, and sentient. He's still here, pulling the strings, and that means we can get to him."

Kipo paused, looking into each of her friends' faces. They seemed shocked... and more than a little confused. Kipo couldn't blame them, she had just as many questions for her own plan as they did, and worse, Kipo wasn't sure she could answer all of them.

Finally, Tulip gulped, but it didn't do much to swallow the confusion and surprise warring on her face. "Okay," she said. "How?"

"We'll need to find him first, won't we?" Mabel pointed out.

"But I thought he was a part of the world now, right?" Luz wondered, but even as she said it, she sounded uncertain.

"Maybe..." Kipo said, and she didn't love how uncertain she was of the answer to that herself. "But I'm not sure. I think I saw him."

Everyone seemed to startle at that new information, and Tulip gasped.

"Wait?" she cried. "Where?"

"A couple times," Kipo explained. "Once at the forest, when me and Wirt were nearly passing out from that poisonous cloud there, and another time when I was in the mountain, and I first found that crystal."

"Why would he help you?" Kai asked, looking perplexed. "Isn't he trying to kill us?"

"No," Kipo said, before immediately changing her answer. "Well, yes, but... well, remember what this guy is like. Last time, he made up a whole fake quest for the last group, with a fake puppet villain for them to defeat at the end. Actually, now that I think about that, it sounds like he's been doing that with every group that came through here."

"He definitely has a flair for the dramatics," Tulip agreed, nodding. "So you're saying he was trying to force us along a story, too?"

"But we didn't get a quest," Luz said. She looked around uncertainly. "Right?"

"Not any big important quests," Mabel replied. "Actually, it was kind of boring here."

"I think there was a point to that," Kipo told them, frowning to herself. "Despite what happened in the end, I think that group nearly escaping was a big blow to this world, and the one who ran it. He's probably trying to just keep an eye on us here until we die out from basic exploring. That's why he helped me find other people."

As soon as the words left her mouth, Kipo looked down guiltily. The group went silent, thinking the new information over. Kipo couldn't bear to look up at them, to read their thoughts on their faces.

Had it always been this way, even from the start? Kipo, manipulated by forces she couldn't have imagined at the time, making decisions that only pulled people closer towards danger? If she had stayed in that clearly, would Adam had died? If she had set out to look for the rest of their group, would Alice have died? Or Dib? Or Wirt? Or Dipper?

A growing feeling of dispair built up itself in her stomach. What had she done...?

"...We need to get out of here," Coraline finally said, lowly. Kipo looked up, surprised. That... was not what she was expecting. But could she bring herself to disagree?

"We can't do that!" Luz cried, protesting where Kipo could not. Mabel nodded firmly.

"Kipo's right!" she agreed, looking determined. "We have a chance! We can fix this!"

"Or die trying!" Kai argued, but Kipo could tell it was halfhearted. Kai was afraid, and for now, that was all he could think about. But she could tell that it'd only take a little bit of convincing for him to change his mind.

Coraline was the same way, Kipo realized. Coraline was smart, and perhaps she was also right. But she had a good heart. She wouldn't stand for cruelty like this. None of them would.

But maybe that was the bad choice. Maybe it was the one that would kill them all.

Still, it only took five minutes of argument for Coraline and Kai to change their minds, finally agreeing, and without reluctantance.

"So?" Mabel asked, grinning. She was proud of herself, having already won one battle. "Where do we go to kick this guy's butt?!"

Kipo felt her mouth quirk up, despite how terrible she was feeling right now. There was a desperation in her chest: to save all her friends, to finally end this horrible, all-to-long chapter of this world's bloody history, to finally end their long journey... but all of that was lessened by her friends' firm and determined faces.

She would do her best to save them, of course. She'd even... she'd even sacrifice herself to keep them alive. But she had to trust they'd be okay, because if she didn't...

Kipo didn't let herself go down that path.

"Well, definitely not in the forest, that poisons him just as much as the rest of us," Kipo answered. She frowned, thinking back. Technically, she only had one other guess... but when she thought about it, it was a rather educated guess. She leaned forward to explain it to them. "I think he might be in the mountain next to our home, or our old home, I guess. Actually..."

Kipo paused, thinking back to the map her and Tulip had been studying earlier. She gulped. There would probably be only one reason that the mountain was that significant, that big, and that close to their home. "Actually... I think they all are. I think the watchers and that person is there."

Tulip winced. "That's... pretty far away."

"Then we better get started," Mabel said, jumping up and down determinedly. She turned around, probably to speed out through the exit, but Coraline stopped her before she could leave.

"No, it's too far away to get there, even if we hurry," Coraline told her, rolling her eyes. "If this guy is watching our every move, he knows we're coming. We can't get to them in time. It already sounds like it's too late..."

Coraline trailed off, looking at Kipo with a nervous expression. Kipo opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Before she could even begin to think of a potentially solution, or even tell them that she was trying to think of a potential solution, Luz spoke up.

"Well, I can make some of that smoke to we don't have to go to the forest," she said. "But that'll still take some time, and I'm not sure we'll have enough to poison him. I wish I could ask-."

Before she could reach the end of that sentence, Luz snapped her mouth shut, suddenly paling. Kipo winced. She also wished they could ask Six, or Ocelot, some questions, but Kipo didn't think she'd be inclined to help.

What was Six's view on all this anyway? It was hard to imagine someone Kipo had knew could be so cruel as to be involved in something as awful as this, no matter how much of a jerk they happened to be, but Kipo supposed she didn't know the little creature, or wizard, or god, or whatever, that well.

At least, not like Six did.

Suddenly, the ground shook underneath their feet, and Kipo found herself stumbling. Above her, she could hear the castle crumbling around them as the earth suddenly shook. As Kipo raised her eyes to the ceiling, she saw a crack growing along the ceiling, high away from them, and Kipo felt rock fall onto her shoulder, like rain.

Then, as if it never happened, the shaking around them stopped. Or, at least, the crumbling and cracking stopped. Kipo was still moving, but after a second, she realized that was because she was shaking.

With considerable effort, she stopped.

Looking around nervously, Kai stepped forward, and voiced what they were all thinking. "Er... was that...?"

Kai trailed off, and though the question was mostly rhetorical, a familiar voice answered anyway.

"The first attack by your new-found, super-powerful enemy?" the director asked, moving around the wall. All eyes snapped towards it. "Why, of course. And it'll only get worse. Within the hour, this whole castle will go down, I bet."

"What will happen to you?" Luz asked, at the same time that Coraline said: "We have to get out of here."

As the two glanced towards each other, the director looked between them, then turned away, moving again.

"You don't have much time," the director stated, as if that wasn't obvious. "Follow me, there's a place over there that leads to the tunnels. At least one of you has experience in those, right?"

Tulip's head snapped up, and then a smile appeared on her face. The small group hurried after the shadow, having to practically sprint to keep up. "There's a way there? That's perfect!"

The director smiled, too, only barely glancing over. But when it did, it seemed to notice a question on the others faces, and answered before it was asked. "Don't worry. Your friend is already there."

Kipo felt a wave of relief wash over her, and show similar emotions on the others faces. Fei Fei was okay... well, maybe 'okay' was the wrong word but she was safe, at least for now.

Suddenly, the castle shook again, more violently this time, and the group stumbled. Kipo had to reach out and haul Mabel back to her feet as she fell. After that, all questions were forgotten, or at least put to the back burner, while everyone ran for their very lives.