'What is that thing?!?' Was the first thought that raced through Kipo's mind as two glowing red eyes stared at her, getting bigger and bigger through the darkness, and the second was noticing, the huge body that accompanied it, also getting closer by the second. And lastly, Kipo's third thought was a spike of intense fear and adrenaline, and she surged forward, only giving Anne a slight warning of "LOOK OUT!" before she was tackling her to the ground, narrowly missing the monster as it sailed over them. They bounced painfully over the hard ground before finally stopping a couple feet away. Kipo quickly got to her feet again, staring at the monster in a panic, but to her relief, it didn't immediately attack again, only staring back at her in a way that felt like Kipo was no more than a cool toy for a young child. At her feet, Anne groaned, rubbing at her aches.

"Hey, what the- huh?" Anne's annoyed questioning was soon cut off when she raised her eyes, finally seeing the monster for the first time. Her eyes widened, and she glanced behind them at the forest, and at... "Oh no! Fei Fei! Kris!"

Anne scrambled up to her feet, and Kipo watched as she took off to the trees. Kipo almost started following her, but she couldn't tear her attention away from the monster, feeling it would attack at any second. Kipo slowly raised her fists, and they transformed into the jaguar fists. She took a deep breath. The thought of all her friends being in danger... it gave her the courage she needed.

Or so she thought.

When Kipo's eyes finally met with the monsters again, her blood turned to ice, and she found herself paralyzed. She... couldn't understand this thing.

The monster stared back at her, tilting its head in a sharp, jerky motion that might have been curiosity... but Kipo doubted it. Nothing, from the cruel and sunken, merciless, red glowing eyes that blinked at her from the darkness, to the swaying motions of its limbs, suggested this thing had any other emotions than cruel and horrible bloodlust.

Kipo flinched as the monster leaned over, taking a few silent steps, and she raised her fists. But the look of the monster made her pause. Kipo shuddered, her eyes racking over its body. It looked like it might have the shape of some sort of dog, with dog ears and the kind of head shape as a dog, but it walked on two legs, and was human seized. Not to mention that all over it's body, it had sharp, knife-like bits was what looked like metal poking out from all over it, from its claws on it's 'arms', to the teeth that it so proudly displayed when it's mouth fell open, seemingly just for show.

Kipo glanced down at her mega jaguar hands, to the seemingly inorganic flesh of the beast, and she made a decision. Quickly, Kipo changed her hands back to human ones, and turned around, racing back towards Anne, Fei Fei and Kris. She didn't like it, but their swords and arrows would be much more useful...

"Kipo! Over here!" someone yelled, and Kipo's head snapped over in their direction. There! A slight flash of silver. Kipo changed her direction, veering over to her. She quickly passed through the edge of the forest, glancing back to find that the monster was quickly catching up to her. Kipo grit her teeth. Was she leading it straight to her friends-?

"Kipo, jump! Jump!"

Momentarily surprised, Kipo's knees nearly buckled, but she made sure to leap forward, flying over the gaping hole in the ground and landing safely on the other side. However, the monster wasn't so looking, but Kipo hadn't realized until she heard a soft thump. When she turned around, she found it had fallen to the bottom of the pit, and was stalking around in the darkness. All Kipo could see of it now were its two glowing red eyes, glaring up at her.

Kipo backed away hurriedly, and was quickly jumped on and pulled into a hug.

"Kipo!" Anne shouted in her ear. "You're alright!"

"Anne, shh!" Fei Fei hissed, but she also looked relieved to see Kipo, and the sediment was shared. Kipo was about to tell her as much, but before she could, Fei Fei was waving her forward, motioning her to follow.

"Over here," she whispered. "We need to get away from that town."

Kipo blinked. "But what about... weren't we going to fight the monsters?"

Fei Fei frowned, glancing behind her at the gaping pit behind her, and Kipo sighed. Alright, fair point.

Fei Fei tilted her head, and then started off through the trees, but to Kipo's surprise, they didn't go far. Only back to the weird horses, which, Kipo was shocked and relieved to learn, were completely fine. However, the relief and shock only lasted so long before a heavy ball of quilt settled in her stomach. She hadn't thought about them once in the... how many days was it? However long she was in there. Kipo winced. She something the type to completely forget about stuff like this...

Suddenly, Kris popped out from behind them, and Kipo jumped. "Huh? Oh, Kris!" she cried, surging forward. "You're alright."

Kris tensed as Kipo hugged them, but to Kipo's surprise, they didn't pull away. But they didn't really seem exactly comfortable, so Kipo made sure to pull away quickly. She smiled at them, and they glared darkly back at her. But that was fine, because they were alright!

"Uh," Anne eventually spoke up, tearing Kipo's attention away from Kris. Anne and Fei Fei were both sharing a sheepish look. "You're probably wondering... what's going on?"

It was phrased as a question, so Kipo nodded.

"Well... basically... er." Anne glanced around, looking from Fei Fei to even Kris for help. Luckily, Fei Fei picked it up.

"When you fell asleep again, I thought of an idea that probably wouldn't use your jaguar," Fei Fei explained. "I thought that if we just used traps, then we wouldn't have to worry you. I... um... I knew that we'd need a lot of traps, probably more than we'd think. But..."

This time, it was Anne who picked it up. "Well, we got off track a lot, and before we knew it, the sun was going down already... but we hadn't really seen it before, because we had been over there, digging that hole..."

Anne trailed off.

"And then the monsters came, right?" Kipo guessed, finishing for her. Anne nodded.

"We didn't make a lot of traps..." Fei Fei told Kipo sheepishly. "But they hadn't stopped any of them. The rope traps didn't work at all, and we only really dug one pit, which..."

Fei Fei cut herself off, suddenly turning to the forest and looking annoyed. Anne huffed.

"Alright, fine," Anne sneered. "I'm 'sorry' I said the rope traps were cooler!"

Fei Fei squinted at her. "Why do I feel like you're not? This entire night failed!"

"Huh?" Kipo looked between the two of them. "The entire night? I don't think so, because now we know what traps work, right? And we can definitely try again tomorrow!"

Anne and Fei Fei exchanged similar looks of knowing.

"...What?" Kipo frowned, tilting her head at them. "We ARE going to try again tomorrow, right?"

"...Not with traps, no," Fei Fei eventually answered, but before Kipo could say anything, she continued. "They are too many of them. We would never be able to make enough traps. That pit took most of our time, anyway."

"But I can help!" Kipo quickly interjected. "We can't just leave the town alone!"

For a second, there was only silence.

"Kipo... do we seem like that type of people?" Anne asked, and Kipo stared at her.

"...Oh," Kipo eventually realized. "You have another plan, don't you?"

"Yep!" Anne confirmed, sounding both proud and annoyed, and Kipo winced. Guess she was too used to spending time with- Kipo quickly stopped that train of thought. "We were digging that hole, when we heard the approaching. Fei Fei and Kris went to scout them out, to see if we could fight them, and I went to get you. Unfortunately, when I actually got to you... they'd already caught up. I thought those traps would work, ok?!"

Kipo blinked. "...Um... ok..."

"Right, right, got off topic," Anne remembered. "Anyway, the point is that they all came from one direction..."

"...Which means they're all coming from one place!" Kipo realized. "Oh!"

"Yes!" Fei Fei looked relieved. "That's right. Our plan is to follow them when the sun comes up with the horses."

"I see..." Kipo sighed, grateful that the things she'd assumed weren't true, because she wasn't exactly sure she'd be able to convince them to help the town. She'd have a hard enough time convincing herself with her split second run in with the monster. Kipo couldn't really imagine what seeing multiple would do to her morals. "Yeah, ok. That's a great plan, actually."

"We know," Anne said, grinning smugly. Kipo turned, looking around, and for the first time, she noticed that Kris, who had been here moments prior, was nowhere to be found. Fei Fei seemed to understand her questioning gaze.

"They're keeping watch," she explained. "We need to make sure we don't miss when the monsters leave again, so we're keeping a close eye on them."

"We'll meet them at high dawn," Anne said in a weird accent, but almost immediately after she said that, a whistle sounded through the air. Anne looked around, momentarily startled. "Or, right now, then, I guess."

Fei Fei's face shifted into one of nervousness before she fixed it. "Come on," she told Anne and Kipo. "We need to hurry. Grab the horses!"

"Alright, alright..." Anne slowly moved towards the weird, skinny, horse things (perhaps Kipo should just take a page out of Anne and Fei Fei's book and just call them 'horses'), but as a much louder, much more insistent whistle sounded, she started moving quicker, and in record time, all three of them were mounted and riding off through the forest.

"Follow me!" Fei Fei called out to them. "Kipo, get ready to grab Kris!"

"Alright!" Kipo held the reigns tightly in one hand, and the other, she changed to her jaguar paw. It seemed fine last time, after all.

"Over there, Kipo!"

Kipo didn't bother responding this time, she just did as Fei Fei said, reaching out, and when Kris was in sight, she reached out, grabbing at them, and shoving them onto the horse behind her. Kipo didn't get a very good look at them, but she thought that Kris looked startled, and she grinned to herself, perhaps a little too self satisfied.

But her attention was soon torn away from that when they're horses broke through the trees, and Kipo got her first sight of just how many monsters there were. Her eyes widened, and she heard Fei Fei and Anne gasp in front of her, and she realized that she may not have been the only person to severely underestimate how many there were, and Kipo winced. It sounded like they were following a full, out of tune orchestra.

Well. At the very least, they knew why the town had been so afraid of them now. There had to be a hundred of those monsters, all streaking across the land that even with the horses, Kipo was nervous that they wouldn't be able to catch up. Just how far were they going, anyway?

Kipo's brow furrowed, and she glanced at the horses. No matter how far they went or how fast, they never seemed to tire or get hungry. They never seemed to eat or pant. They didn't sleep or get bored... Kipo shook her head. She probably shouldn't question that, though trying to feed them something might be interesting.

Suddenly, Fei Fei straightened in her horse, glancing around to look at her teammates. Kipo straightened, giving Fei Fei her attention. The look on Fei Fei's face was sharp and focused.

"Be prepared," she told them. "When we get there, we need to be ready!"

Kipo, and eventually Anne and Kris, nodded, and Fei Fei turned back around in her seat satisfied. Kipo knelt down further into her horse. Fei Fei was right, of course, she usually was.

Yeah... who knows what they'll find? Kipo's buzzed with guesses.

Not this. Whatever, she was excepting, this wasn't it. What even was this, anyway?

When the last monster disappeared, Anne, Kipo, Kris and Fei Fei slid off their horses, staring, shell shocked, at the swirling vortex before them. Yeah... that's right, a vortex. A portal: something Kipo has only heard about in the sci-fi stories she's read (although she also heard bout them in her non-fiction science books, but those were usually disproving the idea of portals). It was right on the side of a large mountain that covered the four of them in shadows, and from inside it, Kipo could see a swirling pattern of shadows and confusing colours. It was so big... even the bone dragon, or Kipo's mega jaguar form could fit in there.

Kipo really could do nothing but stare. Wha- how-?!

...This thing hurt Kipo's brain, and not just from the kaleidoscope colours coming from it. But when she turned to her friends, they didn't seem to be much better off. It seemed none of them took the 'be prepared' advice that Fei Fei had given them earlier.

"...U...Um..." Anne eventually spoke up, glancing uncertainly at everyone else. "What... now? Should we go through it?"

"I don't think that's a very good idea," Kipo mumbled, still trying to wrap her head around the scientific miracle happening in front of her.

"The monsters are behind that," Fei Fei agreed, and unlike Kipo, who had gone breathless at the sight, Fei Fei sounded excited. When Kipo glanced over, she saw Fei Fei's eye's wide with wonderment. "They went through that...!"

Anne didn't seem to notice Fei Fei's excitement. "Oh, right... then we should turn it off, right?! Then they're all trapped, problem solved!"

Well, that was actually a pretty solid idea, but how the heck did Anne plan on doing that? Kipo was just about to say as much when Fei Fei stepped forward, her wide eyes trained on the portal.

"I don't know... we should probably check it out first, right?" Fei Fei stretched her hand out, and Kipo tensed up, preparing to say something, but an unfamiliar voice beat her to it.

"HEY! WAIT! DON'T DO THAT!"