As Kipo left Kai's house, she wondered what time it was. Kai didn't seem tired at all, and neither was Kipo, but she should probably be going to bed soon. Like the clearing, she still woke up at the crack of dawn, so she didn't have to worry sleeping in, but getting only a little bit of sleep wasn't fun... Maybe she could go for a run to tire herself out?

However, before she could start forward, another person emerged from the darkness, and nearly scared Kipo out of her skin.

"Kipo!"

"GAAAH!" Kipo shouted, jumping back before she finally saw who had called out. She breathed out a sigh of relief, and winced when her loud cry echoed off of the buildings. Oops...

Well, there was nothing to do about it now, so Kipo turned to the newcomer, who looked just awkward as she felt about the noise. "Oh, uh... hey, Dipper. Sorry for yelling, I was just a little surprised."

"Oh..." Dipper paused, clearly feeling embarrassed himself. "That's what that was. Well, sorry for startling you. I was just wondering whether you knew where Mabel was."

"Mabel?" Kipo thought back. "She was in the kitchen last I saw, why?"

Dipper huffed, but it sounded more amused than exasperated. "That's the first place I decided to check, and she doesn't seem to be in there anymore."

"Oh," Kipo realized. "So that means she could be almost anywhere in the town now, right?"

Dipper sighed, and Kipo giggled. "Pretty much."

Kipo looked over the town. It wasn't too big, but Mabel had a habit of finding places that Dipper would never think of.

"Do you want me to help you out?" Kipo asked, and Dipper shrugged.

"Sure," he said. "Any ideas?"

Kipo opened her mouth, and her mind went blank. "...No, sorry."

Dipper frowned. "Oh... well... I guess we could go around and just look for her then-."

"Oh, wait!" Kipo suddenly cried. "Last time she was working on her... her... milk chocolate inedible sandwich? She said she was going to paint it!"

Dipper suddenly brightened. "Perfect! So to find Mabel, we just need to go to the place with the paint she uses...... I have no idea were that is."

Kipo frowned. "Oh... me neither."

Dipper sighed. "Dangit. Our only lead and we have no idea what to do with it! I mean, it's Mabel we're talking about, for all we know, she could get her paint from an invisible wizard in her closet."

Kipo's eyes widened. "Wait... really?"

Whatever Kipo was expecting, it really wasn't: "Well... yeah."

The two thought in silence for a second, looking around the town. Now that Kipo really thought about it, where in the world DOES Mabel get her paint from...? Kipo never saw a craft store or anything like that...

"Maybe we should just do what you said before," Kipo eventually spoke up. "Walk around and hope that we find her?"

Dipper shrugged, and the two of them started forward again. "We should probably go to the kitchen again," he said. "And check if they are any clues there."

Kipo agreed, and the duo started off towards the Hangout Spot together.

Well, despite Kipo and Dipper's best hopes, the kitchen was empty when they got there, or in any other place in the building. Mable clearly hadn't come back.

Kipo sighed. "Oh... I guess she's still looking for her paint... should we look around the rest of the town?"

Dipper glanced around the rest of the room. "Wait... hold on a minute. Mabel's a messy person, right? Maybe she left some kind of clue to where she went..."

Kipo didn't really have any idea what he was talking about. "Like a note or..."

"No..." Dipper replied, starting to walk around the room, seemingly examining every random surface. "Something like... oh, there!"

Dipper suddenly stood up straight, pointing at something in front of Kipo. When Kipo followed his gaze, she found a large chocolate stain, presumably left from the sandwich. Kipo frowned, at first confused, but then her eyes traveled lower and she gasped.

"There's a trail!" she realized, kneeling down. There were large drips of hot chocolate dripping off the table and into a puddle on the floor, and from that puddle there was a clear trail leading out the door and turning towards the exit. That sandwich must have been dripping a lot.

"Perfect!" Dipper cheered, not waiting a second as he rushed out the door. "Come on, it leads this way!"

Kipo followed without argument, and the two of them followed the chocolate stains on the chocolate through the door, past the cobblestone stairs, and onto the dirtied cobblestone street. It was a little harder to make out the chocolate on the muddy and dirt filled cobblestones, but Kipo led them straight with her enhanced, cat-like eyesight.

The trail led through the town, and sometimes, Kipo thought she had a bit of an idea of where they were going, but then they would turn suddenly and Kipo would have no idea again. It seemed that Mabel decided to go the most convoluted, impossible way. Was Mable even actually going anyway?

Lost in her thoughts and her curiosity, Kipo didn't even hear Dipper's warning at first, so when something ran into her side at full force, Kipo was knocked to the ground. Whatever slammed into her like a suffocating blanket, and for a second, Kipo almost thought she was being attacked.

But luckily the assailant spoke up before she could violently shove him off.

"Huh?" The unmistakable voice of Dib sounded from above her, and he didn't sound very happy. Well, neither was Kipo. "Oh, it's just you."

Dipper, still standing up, safe and sound (and noticeably not helping anyone up) stared at them both dumbfoundedly. "Dib? What the heck are you doing?!"

Dib got off of Kipo, and they both painfully stumbled to their feet. After a minute of groaning painfully, Dib answered him. "Obviously, I'm monster hunting."

Dipper let out an irritated groan. "For the last time, Kipo isn't-."

"I know she isn't; I wasn't looking for her!" Dib snapped, waving his hands around. "I was looking for another thing!"

"What... kind of thing?" Kipo asked. Both she and Dipper were looking at the long plank of wood in Dib's right hand, almost like a bat. What'd he need that for?

Dib glanced at the bat as well, and it seemed to suddenly cure his irritation. He suddenly seemed more... wary. "Oh, this... well, didn't I tell you I was monster hunting?"

"Those other times you went monster hunting, you didn't bring something like that," Dipper noted. Kipo nodded. Dib shrugged.

"Those times, I didn't think I'd need a bat," Dib explained. "I had thought that whatever monsters were in this town, or this valley, I could just observe them from afar. Usually, paranormal creatures are like normal creatures, they just like hiding more."

Kipo nodded. She could kind of see where he was coming from, she had never really needed to attack the animals in the clearing.

The clearing...

"So, what changed?" Dipper asked, distracting Kipo from her thoughts. "You said 'those times'. What's different this time?"

Dib suddenly soured, and he glanced around them, almost... fearfully. "Because this time... I know about that thing."

If Kipo didn't know better, she would have said that the darkness around them pressed even closer when he said those words, and the night got colder. Kipo felt a shiver run through her.

"That thing?" she repeated, and as if the mere thought of it was scary, Dib shivered.

"It was... well, I saw it earlier this night, when I'd been reading in my room," Dib explained. "I was by the window, and I was reading this book called The Ronan Harrison Collection. Here-."

As if it was a prop to his story, Dib took out a thick, battered book that looked like it was a hundred years old. It smelled that way as well, and Kipo wrinkled her nose. She and Dipper watched as Dib flipped to a random page, and turned it around to show his audience. He almost seemed smug when they recoiled in surprise.

The illustration on the page... it looked like it had come straight from a horror comic, or something like that. It was vaguely human, but also so clearly not, and not in the way Kipo was only half human, either. It was only pretending to human, and that made Kipo's toes curled. It felt like she was being hunted by the thing on the page, and the repulsion she felt to the nervous feeling was almost physical.

It was strange. When Kipo really looked, all there was on there was a drawing of a girl, and an odd symbol.

"This is the Imposter," Dib explained. As he talked, he pointed out things on the page. "It can make itself look like any person or object in the world, and infiltrates a group of people. It doesn't are if they know it's there or not, because it's practically never found. It works divide the group as much as it can, dividing them and picking them off, one by one. The only way to know if it's the Imposter is the insignia on the back of it's neck, but the marking is usually hard to make out if you don't know exactly what you're looking for."

Dipper's brow furrowed while Kipo's eyes went wide.

"So, you think..." Kipo said. "That the Imposter is here?"

"Either that, or he read about it and jumped to conclusions," Dipper muttered. Louder, he said: "Do you really think it's around here?"

Dib paused for a second. "...No," he finally replied. "But as I was reading it, I glanced out the window and saw Mabel-"

Both Kipo and Dipper straightened.

"-And I saw her carrying something weird," Dib continued, oblivious. "It was something wet and dripping, and though I definitely thought it was weird, I knew Mabel well enough to know that she'd be the type of person to do that.

"I didn't really look at her, and I just went back to reading. That's when I got to that page. It creeped me out just as much as it creeped you out, and I just happened to see Mabel again. Without the object, AND with different clothes then what she had been wearing before."

Kipo and Dipper blinked at him, and then exchanged a glance.

"But what if that's just the same Mabel-?" they both asked at the same time, but Dib cut them off pretty quickly.

"I know, I know, I, obviously, thought of that, too!" Dib cried. "I'm just... you know... being cautious."

"I think it's more likely that that's just Mabel then a monster you just read about," Kipo said, trying to be reassuring.

"Yeah, the odds of you just learning about it and then actually seeing it are a little too small, I think," Dipper agreed. Dib glared at the both of them, starting to open his mouth to (probably) argue, but Kipo continued before he could.

"But this Imposter does seem like they'll be a problem..." Kipo mused. "Maybe we should have a code word, just in case."

Dib instantly brightened. "Code word? Yeah! Good idea! What should it-? Wait a minute," Dib suddenly cut himself off, once again glaring suspiciously at the two of them. "What if one of you is the Imposter right now? Show me the back of your necks, just in case."

Kipo and Dipper exchanged bewildered looks, but without arguing, they turned around, and Kipo raised her ponytail. Behind them, she heard Dib breathe a sigh of relief. Was he really that worried?

"Okay, good," he said, and Kipo and Dipper turned back around. "Alright, the code word will be... er... grass!"

"Grass?" Dipper repeated, confused. "Well, I guess it works..."

"I know it does," Dib said, irritated. "I'm going to tell everyone else now, so..."

"Oh, do you want help?" Kipo offered, but Dipper cut in.

"What? Kipo, we're looking for Mabel," he reminded her.

"Oh, right."

"I'll worry about everyone else," Dib told them. "You two can tell Mabel, when you find her. But remember, make sure to look at the back of her neck."

"We'll keep that in mind," Dipper nodded, and for the first time Kipo realized he seemed to be in a hurry. He started down the street again, in the direction of the trail. "Come on, Kipo. Bye, Dib."

"Good luck, Dib!" Kipo called over her shoulder. She saw Dib give a sharp nod before they all went their separate ways into the night.

The place the trail finally ended was on the very outskirts of the town, maybe not even in the town anymore. Kipo was surprised, she'd thought she'd search over this place all over, how'd she missed this spot.

Dipper and Kipo paused in front of the only building around: a medium, dirty, practically-falling-apart shack that looked like there had never once been better days for it. Kipo got the feeling that they were both surprised. This was where Mabel got her paint? Kipo wasn't complete sure why Mabel would even go into this place in the first place.

Eventually, Dipper stepped forward. "So... do you really think Mabel's in here?" he asked, echoing Kipo's thoughts.

Kipo glanced down at her feet. "It's where the trail ends," she told him, but her voice was uncertain. Dib, for his part, didn't look any more confident.

"I don't... really believe that there's a shapeshifter walking around as Mabel..." Dipper said. "But I also don't really like the look of that shack."

Kipo nodded. She knew what he was talking about, and the fact that it was pitch black all around them didn't really help much. It just looked so... unsettling.

"Hey... Mabel?!" Dipper suddenly called out, startling Kipo. "Are you in there?!"

Nothing, save for a soft breeze that whistled through the air. Kipo and Dipper exchanged a look, and slowly, they both crept forward, towards the shack. It seemed to sway in the wind. When did it start getting windy?

Eventually, they paused, right by the closed door of the shack. Once again, Kipo and Dipper glanced at each other, before Dipper finally stepped forward and pushed open the door. Kipo and Dipper's anticipation grew as the door swung open before them, and a cold pit of terror and despair suddenly grew in Kipo's stomach.

The walls of the room behind the door were painted dark red liquid, dripping down the walls and pooling at the bottom of the floor, where something was sitting. Waiting.