Kipo couldn't speak. She was standing up, completely out of her seat, and her eyes glued to the blank screen that Gale had switched off a long time ago. The last thing Kipo saw... was Anne dying, and Fei Fei taking the flower.

"I...I..." Kipo fell back into her seat, and Gale peered at her. "I did this..."

"You did the best you could," Gale told her, surprisingly gentle. Kipo glanced up, started. "In the end, you succeeded in getting a flower.

Kipo's frown deepened. "I wouldn't... I wouldn't call this a success. Why do my friends keep dying? What is it with this world?"

"People can bever understand death," Gale hummed. "Perhaps mistakes were made, perhaps not. Sometimes, in order to achieve a goal, this is what must happen."

Kipo looked at him sharply. "Anne wasn't a sacrifice-."

"That's not what I was saying," Gale said in reply. "I'm only telling you that usually, death has no meaning. Dying this way gives Anne's death meaning. Do you understand?"

"..." Kipo didn't know what to say, so Gale continued.

"Kipo, we can't stop here," Gale told her. "You saw Anne's death, right? If we stopped here, that would make it pointless, like all the others. We have to survive, Kipo."

"I... Yeah, I know," Kipo admitted, quietly. She didn't really want to think about it, whether what Gale was saying was right or not. Anne's death... Kipo couldn't let it be in vain. "You're right. I think. I just... Just give me a moment please."

"If you insist," Gale nodded as Kipo dropped her head in her hands. Her shoulders shook as the weight of the realization that Anne was gone. Just like that... just like Adam, and Wirt and Dipper and Norman and Dib and Alice... Kipo hardly got to know any of them, but every single one felt like a scar, and it ached when she moved.

"I won't let anyone else die," Kipo quietly promised them. "I won't let your deaths be in vain! I'll save everyone!"

Those words gave her power, but Kipo still didn't move for a long time. True to his word, Gale didn't say anything against it, instead waiting for her to be ready to face the new challenge again. It was a little shocking and a little strange, but Kipo was grateful for it.

"We'll go to Kris and Mabel next," Gale told her when Kipo was able to face him again. Kipo blinked at him.

"I thought you usually let me choose," she pointed out, and see winced as her voice came out raw and stiff. Her throat burned, and her voice wavered, even though she was certain in what she was saying.

"I assumed you would choose this one... unless you were going to chose the group of three...?" Gale trailed off, but it came of more like a warning than a question. Kipo shook her head hastily.

"No, no, I'll help you," Kipo agreed quickly. She suddenly frowned, staring down at the table. "This time... This time I won't let anyone else die."

"Let's get started, then," Gale said, and the screen lit up again. Kipo stared down at it intensely.

She could only hope she was ready this time.

Mabel and Kris haven't spoken in a while, which for Kris, wasn't unusual, as one day they had decided to never speak again and to break reality so everyone around them understood what they were saying anyway, at least until Kipo came along and questioned that system, so Kris had to find another way to communicate. Luckily, they figured out sign language just in time to be able to talk.

The universe was very nice to Kris. Conveniently.

Mabel, on the other hand, was not quiet, and when she WAS being quiet, it was either because she was sleeping, sad, or doing something suspicious (unrelated, but Dipper called that the three silent S'. He'd never say that though, because that was a Mabel thing to say). Unfortunately, for Kris, this time it was suspicious.

"Kris, look!" Mabel cried, holding Kris' sword aloft. Kris' hand flew to their pouch, but it was empty. Somehow, Mabel had taken their sword without them noticing and had... done something to it. "Doesn't it look great?"

Kris looked at their sword above Mabel's head, once silver and bland with only the simplest was decoration, was now covered in glittery rhinestones. Did it look great? If Kris was going to answer honestly... no, it did not.

"Aw, well, it's a refined taste," Mabel said, not disheartened in the slightest. She passed over the sword to Kris. The sun reflected off of the rhinestones made the sword sometimes sparkly, and when Kris tilted it just right, it made the sword a pure white that gave Kris a migraine. They put it away, and the two started walking again.

There hadn't been anything interesting on the way there, which was probably why Mabel had been fiddling with their sword. Kris was bored, too, living in a small town meant they never had to walk far to accomplish anything. However, Kris got a lot of practice in those Otherworlds, and from that... Person.

The only interesting thing on the entire walk was the gigantic mountain in front of them, that had come into view a long time ago. At they came closer, it got higher and higher (not as high as the mountain near their village, but still pretty high), and got clear. It was cool at first, but it got old pretty quickly.

Thankfully, it wasn't long after Mabel gave Kris' sword back that something showed up. All and all, it wasn't that interesting, but that didn't stop the two of crowding around it as soon as Mabel pointed it out.

Mabel was on her hands and knees, peering into the hole in the ground, trying to see. It was really small, like the kind of hole a mouse or fox would burry into. Kris stood above her, also trying to look into the hole from around Mabel's head.

"Hey, there's something in there!" Mabel pointed it. "It's yellow and shining. I'm gonna try and grab it."

Mabel shuffled around and stuck her arm in, but almost immediately she quickly pulled it out, crying out in pain.

"Ow!" she cried, clutching her hand. "It's super hot in there, but I didn't even get the shining thing!"

Still wincing from the pain, Mabel took her throbbing hand away from where she was hugging it to her body and looked at it. "H-Huh. My hand is red."

Kris looked at her hand, and then moved into the place Mabel was before. Just like Mabel, they stuck their hand in, too. It felt like when Kris stuck their hand in the oven trying to get at Toriel's butterscotch pie, except here, there was no pie to get at. Kris quickly pulled their hand out as soon as the heat got unbearable. Just like Mabel, their hand was red, too.

"Oh, hey!" Mabel called. When Kris looked over, they saw that Mabel had her unhurt hand flat on the ground. "The ground's warm, too, see?"

Kris put their hand on the ground, too. Mabel was right. The gravel underneath them WAS slightly warm. It was a stark contrast to the air around them, which was cool, slightly bordering on cold. A wind blew, and all around them was a blue haze. On the mountain, there was snow.

Strange.

Mabel and Kris continued on, periodically finding new burrows along the road. Because they had no self control, and because each time the found one, their hand had gone mostly normal, they stuck their hands in every single hole, to the same result.

It got old, but there was nothing else to do, so Mabel and Kris did it anyway. It seemed like a miracle when a town suddenly appeared from the haze. Mabel cheered, and sprinted for it, but Kris took their time, checking every hole.

Normally, they wouldn't, but it was a habit they had picked from That Person. The one who had controlled them. That realization was almost enough to make them quit on principle, but what if one of these holes had something cool? Kris kept checking.

Eventually, Kris checked through all the holes, and they had to give up, and they followed Mabel to the town. Which, on second thought, looked more like a village. No, not even that, but what's smaller than village. It was a scattering of five buildings, at most, and it didn't look like it held any residents.

Kris strolled through, into the center of the circle of buildings. The buildings all had signs, and as Kris spun slowly, he read them: Post Office, Main Building, Pickup, Pickup Storage and Main Office. Mabel was probably in one of these buildings, but Kris didn't see which, so they grabbed the door to 'Pickup Storage' at random and pulled. Locked.

They went to the next one, 'Main Office', but before they could even grasp at the door to that one, it was being pushed open, and Kris quickly backed up before Mabel could bump into them.

"Oh, Kris, there you are!" she said, and if she had thought it weird that Kris disappeared in the first place, she didn't say anything. She continued on, as if they had always been there. "I got directions to the town, see?"

Mabel held up a piece of paper, with 'UP' written in big, sparkly, cursive letters. Something told them that Mabel wrote that.

Kris tilted their head at it. But weren't they already at the town?

"Nope!" Mabel answered. "This is just the buildings for business, the REAL buildings are up there!"

Mabel pointed up the mountain, and, just as the directions promised, there was a smattering of houses perched precariously on the side of it. Really small houses. That were really high up.

Did they give Mabel a ride along with her directions?

"No, they gave me something better!" Mabel beamed, and from behind her back, she pulled out a letter. At Kris's questioning look, she leaned in and whispered: "I lied and told them we were 'inspectors'."

Ah. That explained it. Kris nodded at her.

With different people, the trip might have taken twenty minutes, tops, but between Kris wanting to check every nook and cranny in the mountain, and Mabel taking paused to roll down in the parts that looked smoother than another, it took them... well...

They had started mid morning, and had just barely gotten to the edge of town when it was completely dark. When Kris and Mabel walked in, they were both shivering, Kris from the wind and the snow underfoot, and Mabel from the wind and all the snow that she'd rolled in earlier. Kris wondered if she was regretting it.

"A-A-Are y-you k-k-k-kidding?" Mabel asked. "Obviously n-not-Well, a, l-l-l-little bit."

They probably couldn't survive for long in this cold, and definitely not through the night. Perhaps it wasn't the nicest thing to do at what was practically midnight, but Kris didn't care. They marched up to the first door they saw, and wrapped sharply at the wooden door. They winced, and drew their hand back. The light rapping against the cold wood felt like they had been punching their fist through concrete.

Kris opened their palm and studied it. It still... looked normal, and it hurt a lot, so that meant hypothermia wasn't setting in. Dess had told Noelle and Kris a lot of that, mostly to scare them, so Kris knew what to look for. They still had time.

Mabel probably didn't, though. When Kris looked back at her, Mabel and stopped hugging herself, and now her arms were hung limply by her sides. She looked like she was falling asleep on her feet. Kris guessed she had ten minutes, at most.

As interesting as that would be to watch, Kris turned around and knocked harder on the door. Mabel dying would be pretty inconvenient for them.

This time, Kris only waited a couple seconds for someone to answer the door before they were forcing the door open. To their surprise, it was unlocked. A good thing, too, as Kris didn't think they would be able to pick the lock, not in this state anyway.

Kris pushed open the door, grabbed Mabel, and pulled them both inside, slamming the door behind them. Then, they sunk against the door, and sighed. They rubbed at their arms, but this time, it wasn't because of the cold. No, the cold was a distance memory right now, because right now, it felt like they were sitting in a sauna.

Now it was almost too warm, and Kris debated opening the door again.

Mabel had completely passed out on a chair in front of them. Kris frowned at it. That chair was the exact kind of chair found in a church. Actually...

Kris stood up, and they looked over the building they were in. The long pews, the stained glass, and the podium at the front... it was all familiar. Somehow, Kris and Mabel had wandered into a church, and somehow, it felt hotter than the middle of summer in this church. When Kris wiped their brow, their hand came away wet.

Kris stood up, walked over to the pew Mabel was laying down on, and sat beside her. Even the short walk from the door to the chair felt like they had climbed the hill all over again. Twice.

Well, no place better to sit down than here. Kris yawned and laid down on the pew beside Mabel, head-to-head. They wouldn't admit it to any one else, probably, but sleeping with another person after so long was nice, and they hadn't realized just how much they missed it before right now.

Actually, being with other humans was nice. It wasn't that difference from living in a town of monsters, but looking around and seeing people who actually looked like them was definitely a nice experience.

Of course, Kris didn't actually care about any of these people. Perhaps That Person that processed them would, but Kris definitely wouldn't. They weren't anything like That Person. They weren't some heroes, or a protector, or even a 'nice person'.

At least, they really hoped they weren't. Sometimes, Kris got so used to That Person that they weren't sure who they were and who They were.