Kipo was too stunned and confused to move, but luckily, Fei Fei seemed used to this kind of stuff from Anne. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, Fei Fei had jumped forward, grabbing the back of Anne's vest and Kipo's sleeve.

"We aren't!" Fei Fei shouted, very quickly. She started pulling Kipo and Anne away, much to Anne's chagrin. "We're looking for Kris!"

"U-Uh, yeah, you're right!" Kipo suddenly snapped back to reality, and Fei Fei dropped her sleeve. "We can't afford to get sidetracked!"

Anne looked disappointed, but she didn't argue, and when Fei Fei let go of her, she followed along. Kipo patted her on the back.

"Don't worry, we can come back later if you want!" Kipo offered, and Anne brightened.

"Yeah!" she cheered. "Are you going to bet on me, too?"

'With what?' Kipo thought, but she just shrugged. "I'll... try?"

"Great." Kipo felt an urge to back away when Anne's face shifted into an evil grin.

Fei Fei led them down the length of the arena, and though Kipo kind of hoped they went through unnoticed, the confused yells of the audience and the pause of the sounds of steel clashing together didn't bode well for them.

"Down here!" Fei Fei called to them, drawing Kipo's attention to a gate she hadn't noticed before, one that seemed to slope down underground. Kipo stared at it. It was block with a chain linked metal gate, one that even Kipo was unsure she could break. But she transformed and raised her fist anyway, drawing it behind her. What exactly was Fei Fei's plan...?

"Kipo!" Fei Feu suddenly yelled out. "Get ready!"

"Huh, what-?!" Kipo stumbled, nearly falling on her face. She had to pull herself together! "I mean, yes! I'm ready!"

Kipo braced herself to punch down the door, but to her surprise, that wasn't exactly what her friend had been thinking. Fei Fei raised her arm and fired a previously unseen contraption, a sort of wristbow, but the thing fired from it wasn't the sort of arrow Kipo was used to seeing. It was an arrow with a cone on the end, and a flattened tip.

But it did its job. It sailed through the air, hitting some sort of lever. The gate before them started raising, and Kipo, Anne and Fei Fei ducked underneath.

"Kipo, close it!" Fei Fei ordered, and this time, Kipo didn't stumble. She jumped up, grabbing the gate, and slammed it shut. It clicked at the bottom, and didn't raise again, thankfully. But it wouldn't stay closed for long. When Kipo looked through the gaps of the gate, she saw guards like the one outside moving through audience, and the two combatants moving forward curiously.

Kipo winced. So much for going through unnoticed....

Fei Fei seemed to notice as well. "We should move on," she suggested. "And quickly. Do we remember which way Kris was...?"

Kipo drew her gaze away from the gate, shaking out her head. "It's... I think I do. Follow me."

Anne and Fei Fei nodded, and Kipo started forward. When the tunnel started to slope down, the sand shifted under her feet, and Kipo nearly slipped sometimes, but after a minute, the ground leveled out, and the three of them were able to walk much easier.

Kipo consulted the map in her mind. She was mostly decent with directions, and she'd learned a lot from Wolf when they were traveling, so she was pretty confident she knew where they needed to go. However, in the corner of her eye, Kipo say tunnels going off to her right, which according to the map of the prison in her head, didn't make any sense. But Kipo ignored them for now, she need to focus on finding Kris.

Suddenly, she paused, straightening up. They needed to hurry, because she could hear the distant grind of large metal gears. They wouldn't be alone in the tunnel for long, so Kipo quickened her steps. Anne and Fei Fei hurriedly followed suit, catching on quickly to Kipo's apprehension.

But they weren't quite quick enough.

"Hey! All of you! Stop!"

Kipo jumped, looking around. The layout of the place inside (kind of looked like a prison with barred cells on each side. Worrying) was simple, which made it pretty easy to navigate, but it also made it easier for them to find.

Kipo finally spotted the person who had found them, a guard on a level above them. Before she could react, though, Anne quickly shoved her forward.

"Hurry!" she cried. "Just make a beeline to Kris!"

"Got it!" Kipo agreed, rushing forward, and Anne and Fei Fei followed her quickly.

"Hey!" the guard shouted from behind them. "I told you to stop!"

The three of them ignored him, not slowing down even a little bit. As they ran through the halls, Kipo could still hear him shouting.

"Over here!" Kipo called out when they rounded a corner. "Look for Kris! They're somewhere around here!"

Fei Fei and Anne shouted that they understood, and the three started looking into the barred cells beside them. Curiously eyes stuck in very strange looking faces looked back, but none of them were Kris. Kris didn't even have their eyes showing, since it was covered by all their hair.

Something in her way caught Kipo's eye, and she slid to a stop, making Anne and Fei Fei slam into her. The three stumbled forward, nearly knocking into the people in front of them.

"Ow!" Anne cried. "What the- What the heck is that all... about..."

Anne trailed off as her eyes finally met with the group of guards in front of them, who looked none to happy to see them.

"Wha- how-?" Kipo stumbled over her words, stepping back as the guards stepped closer. Fei Fei peeked over her shoulder.

"Oh, look!" Fei Fei pointed at something behind the guards. "That's Kris, right?"

Kipo gaped. Now that she was really looking, it looked like the guards were guarding them. But why...? Did they somehow know that the three were going for him? Once again, Kipo could only cough out a couple of shocked words. "But... how???"

Something stepped out from behind the group of guards, a person who looked rather different from them rest of them: complete with a mustache, a cowboy hat, and a large blue jewel on his lapel. He gave them an evil crooked grin.

"Next time, maybe you shouldn't call out the name of the person you're looking for."

Kipo groaned.

CLANKCLANKCLANKCLANKCLANK-

Loud and annoying metal clanging echoed throughout the hallway, and the screech that was too high for human ears made Kipo wince and cover her ears. A downside to being half mute, apparently.

Eventually, Anne thankfully let go of their celled doors and sunk to the floor with Fei Fei and Kipo.

"Yep, that's sure locked," she sighed, motioning to the door. "Now, before we start waiting around forever and ever, does anyone have any tricks to getting out? Lockpicking skills? Kipo, you have superhuman strength, right?"

Kipo gazed at the door. "I do, but we can't bust through without alerting the guards, and then it'd just be a repeat of last time."

"Right...." Anne suddenly frowned, thinking back. "You know, I still don't understand why we surrendered. We could have taken them."

"I suppose we could have," Fei Fei agreed. "But who knows how many guards there actually are? Could we really have defeated all of them? Besides, this place is strange, so once Kris was with us, how were we supposed to get out?"

Anne didn't speak for a second. She seemed confused. "... Wouldn't we just follow the tunnel?"

Kipo frowned. No, they couldn't just 'follow the tunnel', but she didn't really know how to say why...

Luckily, Fei Fei stepped up first. "Um... this might be silly, but I think this place is... strange. The whole town, I mean... not this building."

"Really?" Anne titled her head. "You mean like a Stranger Things type of strange."

Fei Fei frowned. "I... don't know what that is," she told Anne, sounding baffled.

"What Fei Fei means is that when we were going through the tunnels, there were corridors branching off to the right, outside of the prison," Kipo explained, but Anne still didn't seem to be getting it.

"So... these are just catacombs, right?" Anne asked. "I mean, catacombs are always creepy and weird in movies, but I don't see what's so strange about them being here."

"What's strange is that these 'catacombs' are the only entrance to the prison," Fei Fei told her. "And to every other building, too."

"What?" Anne blinked, and Fei Fei nodded. "Wait, really?"

"I didn't notice back then, but I think than none of the buildings up there had doors to them," Fei Fei explained. "Just like this prison. Even the church didn't have one."

"Yeah, that's right!" Kipo realized. "And there weren't any people up there, either! I was just so used to empty space that it didn't occur to me at the time."

"...Wait." Anne looked completely stunned, and Kipo couldn't understand how she could still be confused. "That doesn't make any sense. So these catacombs connect the whole town? Why? Why would anyone build a town like that? This doesn't make any sense..."

"It's to hide from the monsters up there."

Kipo, Fei Fei and Anne started, spinning around to face the person who had interrupted their conversation. To their surprise, it was one of the guards, an older woman who was leaning against the wall outside of their cell. She was facing away from them, so Kipo couldn't make out her expression.

"Monsters?" Anne repeated, sounding skeptical. "We didn't see any monsters up there."

Kipo watched as the persons jaw tightened. "They only come out at night, or in shadows."

"Suspicious," Anne hummed. "I'm sensing a 'the government makes up some scary monsters to keep the population controlled' trope here."

"Do you think we're all idiots?" the guard's voice started rising. "We've ALL seen them! Everyone here has someone who was killed by those devils! That's why we all moved underground!"

The guard's voice had almost rose to a yell at the end, but thankfully, Anne didn't push her. "Alright... alright..."

It was silent for a couple seconds.

"...Um... if it's alright to ask... what do you mean all of you moved 'underground'?" Fei Fei eventually asked. Kipo had been wondering that as well. "Your buildings are still over ground, aren't they?"

The guard bristled, but she didn't seem as angry as before. "Well, yeah, but they're all protected with lead linings in the walls."

Anne, Fei Fei and Kipo simultaneously winced and recoiled, and the guard glanced back at them with a bewildered look. But for a solid minute, no of them could speak.

"L-Lead lining?" Kipo asked. "Uh... isn't that dangerous?!"

"To the monsters, yeah!" the guard argued, before she suddenly doubled over in in pain. The three of them watched in concern, but eventually, the guard straightened up again. She scowled. "It's unrelated."

Anne frowned. "Uh... alright."

None of them really seemed to know what to say after that, and in the silence, Kipo gathered her thoughts.

"Hey, if the monsters up there were defeated, then there wouldn't be any more need for the lead, right?" Kipo spoke up. "Trust me, we aren't trying to be mean or make fun of you, we just want to help!"

The guard froze, but to Kipo's relief, she seemed to consider it. "Well..." she spoke slowly, seeming to be mulling over Kipo's words as she talked. "We wouldn't have any need for it, so... I suppose not."

"Then it's decided!" Kipo stood up, and the guard backed away. "The three of us will defeat the monsters up there, and then you all can be safe, from the monsters AND the lead in your houses!"

The guard blinked at her, looking flabbergasted. "Um... what?"

"We'll go to stop all the monsters!" Kipo explained. "Or at least try to talk with them.... You'll let us out, right?"

The guard didn't answer for a second. "...No, I won't."

"What?!" Kipo was taken aback. "Wait, why not?! We can help you!"

"Well, you're in the right place," the guard explained. "The whole point of this arena is for one person to rise to the top for the honour to go up to the surface to defeat the monsters."

"Huh?" Anne cut in. "None of this really seems to add up... Wouldn't some sort of contest be easier? Why an arena specifically."

"Why not an arena?" the guard huffed. "We don't want more people dead than necessary, so to prove that you're up to the task, you have to defeat everyone else here. To prove that you're good enough to go up there and not die."

"Pfft..." Anne flipped her hand in a casual sort of way. "That's easy. The three of us would be able to do that no problem."

The guard gave her a scathing look. "So you want to enter the arena, and beat everyone else there? This isn't some sort of tournament; you have to defeat everyone."

"Yeah, sure," Anne shrugged, and the guard looked close to furious at her lack of either enthusiasm or concern.

"I think we should," Fei Fei added in. "There are teams, right?"

The guard glared at them for a couple seconds before speaking. "There's one team of ten."

Fei Fei's eyes widened, and even Anne was looking a little taken aback at this point. But Kipo met the guard's gaze calmly and held it.

"We'll definitely do it, but we have one request," she said, and the guard blinked, curious and suspicious.

"What is it?"

"We want to talk to Kris, the person we were looking for earlier," Kipo explained. "And if possible, we'd like them on our team."

The guard seemed to pounder that for a minute. "Well, Kris is already a team of their own, so you'll have to take it up with them."

"They're fighting in the arena?" Anne sounded intrigued. "Are they good?"

The guard grunted. "They have a ninety nine percent win rate."

Fei Fei gasped. "That's amazing!"

Anne pumped her fist in the air. "We definitely need them on our team!"

Kipo met the guard's eyes again, even more determined than last time. "Well, that's decided, then. Let us talk to them. Please?"

The guard seemed to hesitate, and then she shrugged. "Sure, not my problem. I'll tell the warden when I get the chance."

The guard looked away from the, and Kipo sat back, satisfied. Now, all they could do was wait.