Kipo stared up at the raging fire that licked up the trees and held onto everything around it. There was no doubt that this was fire, but when Kipo really looked at it, it didn't really look or feel like a fire should. Obviously, it was pink instead of red, or any normal colour a fire is supposed to be, and cast everything around it in odd glow. It also didn't seem to be burning up anything it was touching, just seeming content to sit there.

It didn't smell like a normal fire either. It just felt like... nothing at all.

Kipo tilted her head at it. "Is... Is this the thing making all the pink fog?" Kipo asked, and then corrected herself. "Or... smoke?"

Adam glanced at her. "Smoke?"

Kipo pointed. "Yeah, up there! You can see it!"

Wirt stared at it, and stepped back. "S-So, that fire did all that?"

"The fire did that to the ant..." Adam realized slowly. "Are all these creatures weird because of the fire?!"

Wirt's hands flew to his mask in horror. "What'll it do to us?!"

"Probably not good things," Kipo said. "But if we can douse the fire, we won't have to worry!"

Adam nodded, but he was frowning. "That sounds right..." he said. "But why do I have the feeling it might not be that easy?"

"We got to try!" Kipo ordered, already starting through the forest. "Come on! Let's find some water!"

Adam huffed. Crossing his arms. Once again, he didn't follow Kipo right away. When Wirt looked over to him, he found that Adam looked troubled.

"Um... why do you think we can't put out the fire?" Wirt asked timidly. Adam shrugged.

"It seems too easy," he said. "You know, this feels like the thing where we're like 'yeah this will work!' but it doesn't and we somehow make it worse."

"How could it get worse?"

"The fire could get worse," Adam offered. "One of our masks could fall off. Besides, wasn't Kipo acting a little suspicious earlier?"

Wirt frowned. He'd thought Kipo had been acting odd, but he was still hesitant to label her actions as 'suspicious'. Kipo... Kipo couldn't betray them...

Unfortunately for Wirt, Adam saw right through his hesitation. "Don't tip her off," he warned. "Just act natural, and leave it to me, ok? If Kipo does try anything, I'll handle it."

Wirt grimaced. "Do you really think Kipo will betray us?"

Now it was Adam's turn to hesitate. "I mean... based on the story beats... I think..." Adam huffed in annoyance. "Yeah, I think she is. Sorry."

Adam hurried away before Wirt could say something, which Wirt was grateful for. He didn't even know what to say.

Kipo, Adam and Wirt stared miserably down at their reflections in the water.

"Ok... so you found a lake," Adam said. "Now what? We don't have anything to carry it with."

"We don't NEED to carry it!" Kipo argued. She refused to give up, not after what she'd seen happen to the ant. "We just... need to make a trench!"

Adam raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "You're not serious."

"I AM." Kipo dropped to her knees and began digging. "But you don't have to worry, because... Herbs out!"

Kipo held up her hands, and they changed into the mega jaguar hands. Adam blinked.

"Aren't you worried about not being able change back?"

"Well, yeah," Kipo said. "But my hands should be fine. Besides, this is important!"

Kipo dug her hand into the ground, and, with barely any effort at all, dug a line in the ground that instantly started filling with water. Adam and Wirt backed away, taken aback.

"Oh... maybe it will be possible to dig a trench," Adam rubbed the back of his head. "Well, alright then."

"Just give me a couple minutes!" Kipo called out to them. "I'll have this trench done, I promise! And then the fire can go out!"

Adam just gave her a thumbs up.

The two of them watched in amazement as Kipo quickly dug up the ground, creating a line from the lake to the fire. She was right, it didn't take long until there was a steady stream of water trickling down from the lake and over the fire. But no matter how much water ran through the fire, the fire seemed unaffected.

Kipo frowned. "I don't... why isn't it working? Does it need more water?"

Adam shook his head with a groan. "Look at the trees! The fire isn't burning them at all! This fire is probably like the ones in the torches, and it just isn't effected by anything and it doesn't burn anything."

Kipo's face fell. "But then we can't put it out..."

Adam shrugged. "I mean, it doesn't really matter. Based on what you said about the clearing, the forest is the only place with this fog. If it's really that much of a problem, we can leave, right?"

"But what about my brother?" Wirt spoke up. "And your friends?"

"At this point either they got leaf masks," Adam reached up to touch his flower. "Or..."

Adam trailed off.

"We can't just leave this burning," Kipo told them. "What about all the creatures here? After what you saw with the ant, can you really just say that we can leave it like this?"

Adam looked puzzled. "What are we supposed to do?"

"We..." Kipo looked lost. "We... just have to get more water!"

"Are we supposed to drain the whole lake?!"

Wirt looked nervous. "I think we should at least try... I guess?"

Adam scowled, but before he could say anything, he felt a light tap on his shoulder. The three of them paused, and then looked up. It was starting to rain.

"Yes, perfect!" Kipo cried. "Look! Now the fire's sure to go out!"

Adam frowned. The fire didn't seem to be hindered at all, and it was raining harder by the second. Soon enough, it might be pouring.

"Um... Kipo?" Wirt asked nervously. Kipo glanced over to him. The rain was getting louder, and almost painful as it pounded down on them. This was starting to seem familiar, but this time they didn't have a house to hide in.

Adam looked to the both of them, raising his arms above his head. "What's going on?" he called to them. The three of them shuffled closer together, the rain was feeling like waterfall now.

"This has happened before!" Kipo explained to him. Despite being right next to each other, they had to shot to be heard. "It looks like it's going flood! We need to get to higher ground!"

Adam and Wirt didn't argue, they just turned around and hurried towards the nearest tree, while Kipo turned around to try and grab Bipo. But before she could get to them, Adam was grabbing her arm and pulling her away.

"Huh?!" Kipo cried, confused at first. "Wait, no! Adam, wait about Bipo?!"

Adam looked from Kipo to Bipo, and there was something in his gaze as he looked at them, but Kipo couldn't figure it out.

"They're fine," Adam snarled, and once again, there was something in his voice... but the heavy rain in Kipo's eyes and ears for her to pick it out. "They're already safe!"

Kipo blinked, and she wanted to look behind to check, but Adam harshly pulled her along before she could. There was something about him... the way he was acting...

Kipo shook her head. She needed to trust her friends. She followed along without complaint.

The entire ground was a puddle now, and with each step their feet sunk further and further into the ground. By the time they got to the tree, their legs had sunk down to their knees.

Adam didn't waste any time hurrying up the tree, grabbing onto the branches and pulled himself up, climbing up the tree quickly. Wirt went next, but before he started up, he hesitated.

"Do you think..." Wirt looked around nervously. "Do you think that that things going to show up again?"

Kipo looked around, too. The fire, despite the storm of rain going down on it, was still burning bright. "I don't know, but we can't stay down here. We'll figure it out if it comes, alright?"

Wirt hesitated, but eventually, he nodded, starting up the tree, and not a moment too soon. Kipo pulled up herself up the tree and out of the now waist-deep water that had been threatening to engulf her completely, following after Wirt and Adam.

But it never really felt like she had gotten out of the water. The branches were slippery and it always felt like Kipo was swimming, just with more gravity and more air. She felt completely soaked, wet and numb. It would be nice to have shelter right about now...

But when Kipo got up to the branch Adam and Wirt were waiting for her, there was no shelter in sight, and they were getting rained on just as hard up here as they were down there. Adam and Wirt looked miserable as Kipo hurried up to them.

"We need to get under something!" Adam was shouting before she even got there. "We need to get out of the rain!"

Kipo nodded, and turned away to try and find somewhere to hide. There had to be somewhere, there was no way they could wait out this storm in the-

A sudden boom shook the branch they were standing on, sending all three of them to the ground. Kipo fell to her knees, and it was all she could do to get a handhold on the branch so she didn't slide off.

Something caused that boom. Something big and powerful enough to cause a flood and shake the gigantic tree the three were on. And when Kipo lifted her head and looked through the rain, her worst fears were confirmed. The empty eye sockets peering out from the stark white skull met hers.

For a second, Kipo's voice stuck in her throat, unable to move as the skull sized her up, the mouth with the wicked sharp teeth almost as long as she was opening and closing. It was almost beautiful, and still the skull was in the raging storm, the water dripping off of it... but then Kipo came to her senses. She quickly jumped away from the skull, nearly slipping off the branch.

"Run!" she yelled to Adam and Wirt. "Run!"

She wasn't sure if they'd heard her through the chaos, but they definitely heard the roar of the bone dragon as it raised itself up on its hind legs and brought its front legs down on the tree. There was a crack like a thunder bolt, and then the branch underneath them was tilting.

Kipo couldn't find a handhold to grab onto, she found herself sliding... and then the tree fell with a slash into the murky water and Kipo was submerged.

Kipo panicked, flailing about, trying to force her way up to the surface. Eventually, her head broke the surface, but Kipo barely got any time to get her bearings before something crashed down beside her. A tidal wave crashed over her, and Kipo was once gain forced under the water.

The water around her was now in a frenzy, and no matter how Kipo beat at the water around her, it would not bend to her control.

Suddenly, Kipo found herself rising, caught in a wave as it brought her up. Her back suddenly hit something solid, and Kipo's breath was forced out of her.

Kipo's hands moved before her brain did, and before the water could pull her back down again, her arms latched onto it, and she clutched onto it as the water fell.

It fell a long way, and when Kipo looked down, she realized that she was somewhere up on the middle of a tree. The water was far below her, but it was rising quickly.

Kipo scrambled onto the branch, looking around for any sign of Adam and Wirt. But instead of her friends catching her eyes, something else did.

Instead of just one bone dragon, Kipo counted at least five of them wandering around, splashing around in the water and tearing down trees. They... they really wanted to find them, Kipo realized. But why? Was it for Bipo?

Before Kipo could really pounder it, one of the bone dragons started rising into the air. Kipo watched it for a second, wondering how it was flying with skeletal wings, before spotting someone squirming around in it's talons.

Kipo gasped. "Wirt!"

Wirt jerked, startled, before he spotted Kipo on the branch. Their eyes met, and Wirt yelled something before the bone dragon rose up into the air.

"I'm coming, Wirt!" Kipo called to him, and she didn't waste any time. She jumped up, scrambling from branch to branch faster than she ever had before. Sometime while she was climbing, her hands grew from human hands to paws, but Kipo barely noticed. She needed to get to the top, she needed to save Wirt!

The top of the tree approached quickly and Kipo quickly scaled it, jumping off of the apex of the highest branch and throwing herself at the retreating dragon. Kipo just barely managed to grab onto the tip of its tail, but when she did, she held on tight.

The dragon let out a cry, looking back to glare right at Kipo, but Kipo only glared back, climbing up the tail like a ladder. She thought her mega jaguar form was dragging the bone dragon down, but with the tornado whirling around them, she couldn't really tell.

The bone dragon let out a roar, throwing its back talons out at Kipo, trying to throw her off. Kipo roared back, knocking them away with her paw. Where they falling down or rising up, Kipo could hardly tell anymore, her head was spinning uncontrollably.

Kipo shook out her head. She wasn't getting anymore with this, and soon enough, the dragon was going to knock her off. She needed to switch tactics.

With a growl, Kipo threw herself off the dragon, down to Wirt. She stretched out a paw to him, which quickly changed into an open human palm.

'Grab on,' Kipo silently urged Wirt. 'Grab my hand!'

But Wirt hesitated.

Before he could change his mind, Kipo was out of reach, her eyes wide and confused as she fell back down to earth, and the bone dragon got farther and farther away before it and Wirt had disappeared.